A Journey to Celebrate and Seek by Yuanjie Chen

Multi-medium April 4 2025

Intro

“A Journey to Celebrate and Seek” (2023–2024) is a body of work by Yuanjie Chen, currently comprising ten paintings and one sculpture. The series is rooted in his personal understanding of love, pain, and the emotional complexity of intimate relationships.

Yuanjie Chen (b. 1999, Fuzhou) is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. His practice spans painting and installation, often centered around themes of love, warmth, emotional memory, and familial ties. Trained in both Shanghai and New York, Yuanjie draws from personal experience and Chinese cultural symbolism to explore how emotion can be shaped, carried, and shared through visual forms.

In his earlier works, Yuanjie focused on trauma, sacrifice, and the weight of blood relations. Over time, however, his practice shifted—guided by continued self-introspection and an evolving understanding of connection. Red, in all its shades, has remained a constant in his work: as the color of blood, of love, and of cultural significance. His recent works—often incorporating red wax, spirals, and roses—trace the journey from rupture to repair, from eruption to intimacy. For Yuanjie, art is not only a way to express, but to embody a philosophy of feeling.

(This background is not part of the featured work)
Labyrinth, 2022. Acrylic, Oil Pastel and Spray Paint on Hay Rug, Wool, Paraffin. 74” X 79.5”

A Journey to Celebrate and Seek

*Not all works have interpretation or artist’s interview.

Unveiling Echoes. 2024, Acrylic on Canvas. 24” x 36” x 1”

Unveiling Echoes is a painting from Yuanjie’s body of work A Journey to Celebrate and Seek.

In this piece, the central image is a brain—delicately rendered with floral forms emerging from its folds and crevices. These blossoms seem to grow organically along the contours of the brain’s structure, as if following neural pathways, yet they also feel gently infused, as if love itself were being poured in. “It’s the process of receiving and giving love through reason,” Yuanjie says. Even when we are tired, composed, or seemingly disconnected from emotion, the brain still remembers the paths where love once flowed.

Radiant Longing. 2024, Acrylic on Canvas. 33" x 33" x 0.5"

Unveiling Echoes is closely paired with Radiant Longing, another painting in the series, which centers on the heart. Where the brain speaks to reflection and distance, the heart pulses with emotional immediacy. It represents the visceral rhythm of longing—the way love rushes through the body, leaving traces in its wake.

Yearning Dawn. 2024, Acrylic, modeling paste, iridescent medium. 16" x 16" x 0.5"

Sparkle, Sparkle. 2024, Acrylic, modeling paste, artificial blood, iridescent medium. 36" x 24" x 1.5"

Between 2022 and 2023, the artist underwent a significant inner transformation. Through an intensive painting exercise, he gradually distanced himself from the overwhelming influence of external voices and reconnected with a deeper longing for love and warmth. This realization was closely tied to the emotional support he consistently received from his long-distance fiancée.

The shift became evident in his use of color. The cold, distant red he once used began to take on warmer tones of yellow and white, while black was used to accentuate and deepen the red. His overall palette became more saturated, luminous, and emotionally resonant.

The Heart of the Awaited Person Will Become as Soft as Clouds. 2024, Acrylic on canvas. 36" x 24" x 1.5"

Behind the Scenes

”As my ideas developed, I discovered a method that not only preserves the wax but also enhances its texture. My wax is red, and my earlier works explored themes like bloodlines and ancestry.

One day, I saw something in a store called “artificial plasma.” It had the same thickness and color as real plasma—only the smell was different. I mixed it with some clear glue, and the result looked like a liquid filled with muscle and connective tissue. It was gross, but very intense and violent in its impact.

When I applied it to the wax and let it dry, it felt a bit like resin, but the waxy quality and the plasma-like look were still there. It fit my work perfectly. I mixed it myself, and the result turned out great.

I transported that sculpture from Manhattan to New Jersey. Some pieces fell off during the trip, but nothing broke—everything stayed intact.

I came up with this method early on. The glue is a more casual, even amateur material. It doesn’t have the structure of something like fiberglass, but I just experimented and made it work.”

The Beloved Person Will Grow Flesh and Blood. 2024, Acrylic, wood, spray foam, paraffin wax, plaster, bandage, glue, artificial blood. 75" x 27" x 21"

From the Artist

”This project（Answer） spans from 2020 to 2024. That year was quite interesting. After I got to know New York and its art scene, and got used to living here, I was finally able to slow down and think more clearly. My thinking became more efficient.

Starting from “Answer 1,” I wanted to deconstruct the symbol of flowers. Especially roses—they are made up of layers, one petal wrapping around another, like the sculpture you just saw. When I look at a flower, and imagine myself as the flower, especially the center of the flower, I feel a sense of being wrapped—this warm feeling. Especially roses, because of their color. I’m nearsighted, so when I take off my glasses and look at a flower with love in my eyes, it doesn’t feel like a flower—it feels more like fireworks, bursting out from the sides.

So I used the shapes of fireworks and flowers to structure and rebuild the work. I wanted to express that warmth and love in a very intense, explosive, and powerful way.

The lines in the center are from a deconstructed flower. I wanted to express love in a pure way. After I removed the light and shadow, sketching, and color from the flower, the lines that remained were the dark spaces between the petals. If I draw just one circle, you can already see it looks like a flower. I pulled it out, took it apart, and put it back together—that kind of feeling.

The black lines on the sides came from the structure of a family photo from 2004. Those lines move slowly toward the center, turning into a spiral. That spiral also represents a change in my thinking. It moves from a cold, unknown place into something that feels like walking through a door. That’s what it means.“

Answer 4. 2024, Acrylic on canvas. 24" x 36" x 1.5"

Answer 3. 2024, Acrylic on canvas. 12" x 12" x 1.5"

Answer 1. 2024, Acrylic on canvas. 12" x 12" x 1.5"

Answer 2. 2024, Acrylic, paraffin wax, glue, artificial blood, resin. 12" x 16" x 3"

Interpretation

Yuanjie’s understanding of “philosophical” isn’t about referencing existing theories to add intellectual weight to his work. Instead, he sees it as “an evolution of concept.” A concept defines what you are trying to do; a philosophy is what drives you when you haven’t defined it yet—but you do it anyway.

This shows up in his approach to materials as well. In The Beloved Person Will Grow Flesh and Blood, he mixes fake blood and industrial glue to create a viscous, flowing surface that resembles blood. He doesn’t care if it’s real or synthetic. What matters is whether the material triggers a bodily response. Is fake blood blood? For Yuanjie, the question doesn’t demand an answer—it’s an invitation. It asks the viewer: when language and logic fall short, can your body still recognize something that feels like blood?

Returning to Unveiling Echoes, we see that Yuanjie isn’t constructing a theory of love. He’s treating love as a kind of trace—a structure that can be reactivated through the body, through image, through material. His work isn’t about illustrating philosophy. It’s about practicing a philosophical mode of being: not rushing to define meaning, but staying open, staying perceptive, and continuing to approach, even in the midst of uncertainty.

The Beloved Person Will Grow Flesh and Blood. 2024, Acrylic, wood, spray foam, paraffin wax, plaster, bandage, glue, artificial blood. 75" x 27" x 21"

Outro

From the weight of blood ties to the fluidity of love, Yuanjie’s work consistently responds to the most sensitive parts of the self. He doesn’t try to define love, emotion, or philosophy—instead, he uses his work to hold onto the traces left behind by lived experience.

This is why, even something that only resembles blood can still awaken something real.