Primavera 春
Primavera 春 is a digital simulation in which the artist depicts herself at multiple life stages, all coexisting within a blossoming spring landscape.
Using early AI face-aging filters, Chen generated "aged" portraits of herself and combined them with archival photographs of her maternal ancestors. These hybrid images became the base textures for fully modeled 3D avatars, animated through motion capture to inhabit alternate timelines and imagined histories.
These avatars interact dynamically in a sprawling floral meadow, partaking in activities such as dancing, running, swimming, observing, and embracing—allegories of childhood, pleasure, beauty, and renewal.
By engaging with and recontextualizing archetypes and visual pastiche found in Renaissance and Romantic period art, this work challenges and reorients established Western male-dominated, art-historical narratives. A body that has not been allowed to appear now owns the viewer's gaze.
As a meditation on time and existence, Primavera 春 invites viewers to engage with the notion of life as a cyclical journey with multiple, coexisting narratives permeated with ancestral echoes, both rooted in the past and extending into the future.
SKF/Konstnärshuset, Counterfeit Glitch, curated by Ashik Zaman and Alida Ivanov.
Long Beach Airport StandardVision, curated by Caroline Haydon.
Circa DTLA StandardVision, curated by Caroline Haydon.
Documentation by Sofia Runarsdotter and StandardVision.