CHEN XIAOGUO

Chen Xiaoguo was born in 1990 in Hubei. He received his BFA from the Sculpture Department of Hubei Institute of Fine Arts and his MFA from the School of Experimental Art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Shanghai.

Chen Xiaoguo began to reconsider the notions of “locality” and “exoticism” during his time in Beijing. The experience of encountering people of different ethnicities within the same temporal and spatial context led him to imagine a broader sense of universality and hybridity. This prompted him to initiate a painting practice centered primarily on foreigners, later expanding to include portrait images circulating across society and the internet. In other words, portraits from all facets of daily life have become potential subjects for his work.

Through painterly processing and reinterpretation of these figures, Chen removes the brutality and hyper-realistic qualities inherent in the original images. Using ambiguous color palettes and brushwork, he re-captures the states of individuals embedded in contemporary image systems, placing them into a visually accessible context shaped by a softened aesthetic. In doing so, he achieves a sense of equality in both aesthetics and the act of looking—ultimately pointing toward a boundless atlas of humanity.