“I hope the work can evoke a sense of intimacy, ambiguity, vulnerability, and perhaps a slight feeling of estrangement. I want something in the image to feel familiar while another part remains unresolved.”

In psychology, Frederic Bartlett (1932) argued for reconstructive memory, the idea that memory is an imagined reconstruction of traces of past experiences, schemas (our existing knowledge, beliefs, and cultural frameworks), and present mood and context, rather than a faithful recording of prior encounters. In today’s “post-digital” world, this process expands by adding photos, social media, and AI images to our memory reconstruction. Together, these forces shape how we remember and how we see our identity, revealing memory as active instead of passive and often filling in gaps and rationalising what does not make sense. The London-based artist Chen Chen gives form to Bartlett’s framework and post-digital culture, making visible fragments, emotional residue, and the parts that “remain,” rather than events. By using digital tools and AI to alter and recombine images, echoing how our memories are now reshaped by screens and algorithms, her work feels both intimate and unstable, like a memory that is partly real, partly imagined, and partly shaped by the world we live in today.

The recent painting series Liquidity of Identity brings together all these theories and explores the relationship between memory, the human figure, technology, and the fluid, shifting nature of identity. Chen was inspired by the constant tension between a person’s physical presence and digital mediation, where their representation can be altered or even modified through technological processes. This framework echoes Zygmunt Bauman’s idea of “liquid modernity”, a condition in which social structures, relationships, and identities are no longer fixed. People must constantly remake who they are and sense of self becomes something you perform and adjust, rather than something you inherit and keep. The artist visually represents this by oil-painting partly present and partly ambiguous figures, in bold colors and textured expressive brushstrokes as if their identity was melting in the frame itself.

Another lens through which to approach Chen’s practice is the idea of AI art and memory and how contemporary AI-based work generates “false memories” or portraits of people who never existed, creating pseudo-realities. But rather than using AI as a replacement for human imagination or even painting, the artist uses it to explore personal and emotional memory, creating visual possibilities born from the interaction between algorithmic processes and human intention. We can frame this series as a dialogue between human memory and algorithmic image-making, where both contribute to a sense of identity that is fluid, partial, and always in process. However, this series is not entirely about technology itself; it raises questions of perception, identity, authorship, and what it truly means to represent a person.

This conceptual framework is mirrored in her technique and creative process. Following the understanding of memory and its disintegration, her figures emerge as blurred, distorted, or partially obscured through the canvas. A colour, a light, and a gesture are all intentionally poised to create a sense of ambiguity and dissonance. By using colours not literally but psychologically, the paintings embody an atmospheric emotional weather. Chen’s creative process also connects with her conceptual investigations, as moving between observation, painting, digital editing, and algorithmic generation recalls contemporary remembering. Each technological layer is intricately tied to how we see ourselves and our past.

“The human figure is obviously connected to identity and embodiment, but I am interested in what happens when the figure is placed alongside animals, landscapes, or unfamiliar environments. These elements can create a psychological space rather than simply describing a physical one," the artist explained.

While deeply personal, Chen’s visual language also connects to a longer art‑historical tradition in which animals, figures, and landscapes function as symbols rather than literal descriptions. They function as a vocabulary of affect, dialoging with the history of Surrealism and its use of dreamlike symbols to express the unconscious. The artist herself references the surrealist dream-like atmosphere and uses animals to express “instinct, vulnerability, companionship, distance, and otherness,” often portraying feelings that might allow less room for personal interpretation if expressed through human figures. By indirectly expressing emotion, the artist also hints at an ecological dimension, where identity is formed in relation to other forms of life. Another layer is the landscapes that often operate as a psychological terrain rather than a documentation of actual places: dreamlike environments that, paired with the imaginary treatment and fragmentation of figures, create spaces that feel familiar yet unresolved, inviting viewers to interpret the painting intuitively and subconsciously rather than rationally. Together, these elements simultaneously create intimate and estranged images, holding the uncertainty of memory and identity rather than trying to resolve it.

Chen’s practice makes room for hesitation, emotional unease, and doubt, suggesting that the role of art is not to represent or embody memory but to hold space for suspension long enough for us to notice the intricate facets that constitute it. Through her body of work, her paintings ask what it feels like to be someone in the contemporary world. Not aiming to give simple, concrete answers, her paintings guide us through uncertainty, allowing identity and memory to remain fluid. 

Cover image:

Booming flowers, 2026. Oil, A3.

All images courtesy of the artist.