Sitting between painting and sculpture, these works operate as a series of cultivations stemming from an internal and external environment. My work is often derivative of a context, where the physical and visceral characteristics of a place manifest themselves through designed arrangements coupled with the residue of making.The material, gesture, and color, on-and-off the wall are composed and integral to the content of my work. Each element alludes to a psychological tension that exists between domesticity and identity. Through abstraction, I incorporate soft and hard forms directly and with economy. A pour, rip, or twist, is silenced or elevated through the repetitive layering of cast-off pigments and materials.

-- Katherine Perryman

My current works are highly related to the image of the city, which I have spend all my life in. I was born and raised in a Shantou, Guangdong, after my junior high school I moved to Guangzhou for my further education.
For me, city is about palimpsest, in which everything is on top of each other. When we are walking in a city, especially a big city, we don't have a chance to see a whole image of one thing, like a building, even when it's right next to us, there's always something in front of it, no sight of the horizontal line.

Developments such as Google maps, GPS, and iPhones help us to find our ways in cities, they give us more access to information, but we are often still confused or lose our way.

My work depicts my impression of the busy but lively cities I have inhabited. The paintings are influenced by the technology I use in navigating the city I currently live in, Philadelphia. The paintings express the complicated feeling I have about cities.

-- Sijia Chen

The Zhou B. Art Center invites you to attend the opening of a two person exhibition by Katherine Perryman and Sijia Chen. Both artists were selected from the National Wet Paint Exhibition 2011.

Opening Reception: June 17th from 7 to 10 pm