CHEN LINGYANG (B. 1975)

Best known for her series of works that explore the intrinsic concept of femininity within a Chinese cultural context, Chen Lingyang is a pioneering contemporary artist born in Zhejiang province in 1975. Shortly after graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Chen began to create her most prominent series of uncanny and dreamlike photographs that figuratively capture the individual and collective experience of females in Beijing. The lot 78 is a two-part series featuring the artist herself as the main protagonist, lying naked with her face down and body rolled inwards atop an apartment rooftop. The scroll-like vastness of the works encapsulate the diminished state of the female figure against the grandiosity of the industrialized, commercial cityscape of Beijing. By using color transparency and a lightbox, Chen effectively delineates the whimsicality of the magic-hour ‘25:00’.