Jewelry Design Master Chen Shiying

If you open the search engine and look for the key words "Chen Shiying" or "Wallace Chan", you will find that the high-frequency words related to it are: Chinese jewelry design master, national treasure collection, the first to create a number of new technologies And juxtaposed with these high-level honors and bright and gorgeous jewelry is Chen Shiying, who is already in the age of Huajia in the news photo: a plain black cloth dress, a neat gray short hair, a elegant beard and beard like an elegant scholar in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. His face with glasses is often captured by the camera with a modest and peaceful expression.

On May 14, 2021, Chen Shiying's first large-scale art exhibition Titan: dialogue between matter and time and space will be opened in the 15th century building fondaco Marcello on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. The exhibition will bring a series of sculptures made of titanium and iron. On the one hand, it is the first time to sort out Chen Shiying's sculpture and installation art creation in many years; on the other hand, it also expresses his long-term thinking on the relationship among material, space and time. A master jewelry designer actually made a sculpture? What is titanium? How do these metallic materials, which represent matter, relate to time and space? A few days ago, Chen Shiying received an exclusive interview with the 21st century economic reporter. In addition to answering the above questions, he also shared his creative and exploration experience in the field of jewelry design and sculpture, and introduced his legendary life for more than half a century.

Chen Shiying's works. Information map

Master comes from poor family

As a child, she was poor in family and material, which helped Chen Shiying to understand and be sensitive to the life and time of all things. He was born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province in 1956. In the early 1960s, he moved to Hong Kong with his family. In his childhood, he had learned how to measure time with material quality. In order to save money, she always wore knee length shorts when she was a child. In order to help her family, Chen Shiying, who was still young, left school early and became an apprentice in a stone carving workshop. But his desire to create made him tired of the same routine in his workshop. So he left his master sculptor at the age of 17, and set up his own studio to teach himself carving. However, due to the lack of material, the carving knife was not willing to throw it away when it was blunt. He changed the function of the tools and "let them live infinitely". Once, Chen Shiying happened to see a book about Michelangelo's sculpture when he was shopping in a bookstore. Sculpture from the West gave him a new perspective - light, abstraction, tension and vitality. As a result, Chen Shiying began to study the flow of light, which laid the foundation for his later redefinition of gem cutting.

In 1987, Chen Shiying, 31, combined Yang carving and Yin carving techniques with actuarial angle cutting. His first "five side reflection carving method", also known as "Wallace cut", won the international design award of that year. This kind of three-dimensional inner carving technique is to drill holes on the back of multi faceted translucent gems to carve and etch images that test the reverse thinking of the operator: the deepest part of the eye is actually the shallowest, the left is actually the right, and vice versa. When people look from the front of the completed gem, the carved image will be refracted by light for many times. Changing the angle of refraction constantly makes the image overlap, which will form multiple three-dimensional reflections. Chen Shiying's classic work "the goddess of holly" is precisely by virtue of this unprecedented carving technique, which presents a fantastic effect of "people" in many aspects. Later, he took part in the Basel jewelry exhibition in 1991 and was invited to hold a solo exhibition in the gemstone Museum of Germany in 1992. He was praised as "Asian carving genius" by the local mainstream media, which established his status as a master sculptor.

Rise up and seek again

From 1996 to 2000, Chen Shiying explored "Buddhist art" in depth. He not only created large-scale sculptures for the temple, but also spent two years and seven months making the Buddha's Tooth Relic Pagoda in Foguang mountain, Taiwan. Shortly after the completion of the pagoda, Chen Shiying dissipated her wealth and became a monk with a Zen master. Later, he gradually realized that the only way to realize the value of life is to create and dream, "to live is to create, and creation is to live". Therefore, he regained his spirits and rose to return to the secular world. After returning to the secular world, Chen Shiying was destitute. He tried to create art with cheap waste materials such as cement, copper and stainless steel, focusing on questions about life, growth, death and human struggle. His fine research on various materials and the desire to push the material itself to the limit drove his artistic creation from beginning to end.

Since 2001, he opened a new chapter in jewelry creation. To break the limits of gold's discomfort due to its weight, he began to study titanium, a substance known as "space metal.". Titanium is widely used in aviation industry, artificial bone and cardiac pacemaker because of its lightness, wear resistance, hardness and good biocompatibility with human tissues. After eight years of trying, he finally allowed titanium to meet his requirements and apply it in jewelry design. Today, Chen Shiying in Titan exhibition can use various carving techniques at will: modeling, casting, carving, welding and assembling. By juxtaposing the lightness and permanence of titanium and the heaviness and corrosiveness of iron, viewers will discuss and think about matter and time - iron will eventually rust, while titanium will not corrode, which is closer to eternity. Each of them has a deep and shocking facial contour of the giant head, the face with a god like calm temperament.

This ups and downs of life, won world honor, also tried nothing, Chen Shiying told reporters: "I am grateful for every opportunity in life." He summed up his philosophy of life in twelve words: to act according to one's heart, to change with circumstances, and to be at ease with circumstances. Luxury comes and goes in a hurry, while art lasts forever. From an apprentice craftsman to a master designer, Chen Shiying has always been like an "empty" wine cup for holding one's own body. It is precisely because he does not hold himself that he is "empty", so that he can be filled, can contain all things and create a great world.

21st century: in this exhibition, you use the life span of titanium and iron to explore the concept of time as short and eternal. What do you think of the relativity of time?

Chen Shiying: since I was a child, I wanted to continue the material life by all means, and I was used to measuring time with material. When you grow up, your pants fit; if you find a way, the carving knife can come back to life. All matter has life, and life is time. I juxtapose titanium and iron, so that they have owner like expression and form, let them have some magnificent poetic. Titanium will live longer than iron, titanium and iron will live longer than me, and our time will be different. Time is extremely short, but also extremely long, it contains everything.

21st century: when you receive a jewelry design, do you first consider the material, natural shape or overall composition of the gem?

Chen Shiying: chicken or egg? I don't know. Sometimes, the idea seems to be born out of nothing, and sometimes it is controlled by the material thinking. There is no order in creation. I'm used to doing it as soon as I think about it. Failure is inevitable, trying is necessary, and chaos is inevitable. Until the moment before the work is formed, everything is chaotic.

21st century: if you want to use a gem or a metal material to compare, what do you think you are like most? Who would like to wear your jewelry?

Chen Shiying: when I was an apprentice in jewelry carving, I already knew that I didn't want to be bound by a certain gem, material or craft. I want to know everything in the world, so I first came into contact with opaque gemstone carving, and later I was attracted by semi transparent and full transparent gemstones. At first, I came into contact with traditional Chinese themes, and later I was attracted by Western myths and legends. At first, I did miniature sculpture, and later I wanted to do large-scale sculpture. To be able to do everything like, also nothing like, that is the most ideal state of existence. As for jewelry, my ultimate object is history. I created it for the sake of history.

21st century: what does it mean to create for the sake of history?

Chen Shiying: what has history given us? What is the history that our existence will give future people? If we create for someone, our vision is narrow. But if the creation is for the macro history, everyone can get some inspiration and common enlightenment through this work. The existence of human beings, objects and crafts should be constructed for the future.

21st century: how would you summarize your artistic creation in the past 40 years? How to keep the progress and vanguard of creation?

Chen Shiying: I can't sum up. Although I have worked hard for half a century, I feel that my artistic life has just begun. Strictly speaking, opening your eyes every day is the arrival of new life. Never be numb to life, not to life. Only in this way can we continue to innovate.