Chen Lizhu, Listening to the Road No.1, Oil on Canvas, 33 x 24 cm x 2, 2011
Born in 1979 in Fujian, China, Chen Lizhu entered the Oil Painting Department of Shanghai Normal University's College of Fine Arts from 2000 to 2004 under the tutelage of Xu Mangyao. From 2005 to 2007, she pursued a two-year study abroad program at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, the Netherlands. Upon returning to China, from 2007 to 2009, she conducted poetic experiments with color, focusing intensely on the "nature of colors," such as how warm and cool colors coexist and how colors appear under different humidity conditions.
From 2010 to 2012, Chen studied Malevich's "Black Square" and created a series titled "Farewell to Malevich," initiating her experiments in "space." Between 2012 and 2015, she participated in artist residency programs at the Park Soo-geun Museum in South Korea and Laforet Art Residency in Italy. In 2016, she was selected for the National Art Fund's "Inheritance and Innovation of Dunhuang" project, conducting research and creating art in Dunhuang for two months.
Her international art travels and return to Chinese culture deepened her exploration of the "space" series. Chen Lizhu is particularly enamored with traditional Chinese gardens, especially the classical technique of "borrowed scenery" advocated by the Song dynasty theorist Guo Xi, intending to create spaces for "living" and "wandering." In her "space" series, she aims to provide viewers with time for "reading" and "strolling," transforming the act of viewing into more than just seeing paintings.
Chen Lizhu's artworks are held in several significant institutions, including Park Soo-geun Museum in South Korea, Hubei Provincial Museum (Hubei Museum of Art), Beijing Wall Art Museum, Shenzhen Yang Feng Art Fund, and Bogo Contemporary Art Project in South Korea.