Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Chen Wei’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, “Breath of Silence”, on view from February 18 to April 12, 2025, presenting his recent body of works encompassing photography, LED light sculptures and videos. Chen is known for his staged photography capturing cinematic scenes suspended in a fragmented time space, these scenes are meticulously constructed in his studio. Muted and often vacant, these charged compositions are allegorical of the psyche of contemporary milieu. His LED sculptures and video installations further transpose in three dimensionality the urban textures and motifs photographed on the lens.
“Breath of Silence” captures an era characterized by alienation and solitude, a repercussion of the global pandemic. The title alludes to the tacit and suppressed traumas from a collective experience that has engendered disquietude and paranoia. The turning to virtual technology and screens as a means of escapism further creates barriers between people. The exhibition also signals a curtain fall to Chen’s New City (2013-) series, wherein the former boisterous promises of progress and prosperity muffle to diminution in a declined economic climate, exposing the cracks between people’s expectations and the reality that unfolds.
The titular photographic work Breath of Silence (2024) stages a figure in a self-confinement chamber. Claustrophobia permeates through the yellow plastic sheet that covers the structure he sits within. A similar sentiment is imbued in Clean Hands (2024) which portrays a pair of rubber gloves hanging down by two holes on an amber glass partition, evoking alienation.
Ring Lock (2024) depicts a marine blue exterior abstracted by glass fluted doors, kept shut by an illuminated ring. The scene appears alluring and serene, yet distant. The video work Light Me (2021) plays a looping still shot of a person sitting in the dark enraptured by the digital screen, their obscured face illuminated by its jarring light. The video conjures the surreal familiarity of late-night scrolls, a poignant portrait of a screen-dominated era. In precarious times, the past is romanticized to be more hopeful and promising. The Stars of Last Night (2024) unfurls as a dilapidated shopfront with broken shards of glass, containing an old time polychromatic light display flickering like Christmas lights — a relic left in abandoned disarray. Chen’s mise-en scènes often evoke the sociopsychological conditions of the city through objects and motifs. Tears on the Ground (2024) depicts a myriad crystal baubles and trinkets scattered across the floor in static disorder, resembling a dispersing crowd in the train station. Temporary solace is found in the lemon, dispersed in disarray in Lemons in the Corner (2024) — forever refreshing and bright.