Junxian Chen’s colourful illustrations search for a “ceremonial” quality in everyday life

“I like to record life in a ceremonial, concise and powerful way,” Junxian Chen tells It’s Nice That. This is most apparent in his recent Daily Observation series, where Junxian emphasises the subtle beauty of everyday occurrences – a basketball falling into a hoop or the clean fold of a sheet hanging up to dry. He carefully tweaks the way objects are constructed visually, like how an air fan may take on the appearance of a flower or the blades of a pair of scissors become elongated and elegant like the inner workings of a clock. His creative eye simplifies the shapes he sees around him and articulates them in bright blocks of pure colour, making them worthy of appreciation in a new light.

With a background in designing brand visuals, Junxian has become adept at taking a simple idea and drawing it out to an interesting or humorous effect. His series Wear a Mask interprets the mundane act of mask-wearing that became normal during the pandemic into a strange, metamorphic study. “One day, I took off the mask when I went home and found that there were streaks on my face, so I was thinking about how, if wearing the mask for a long time, whether it will affect people's facial features.” While we have become generally accustomed to the muffled voices and concealed facial expressions that mask-wearing causes, Junxian’s series takes this image further. A strange transformation takes place: “the nose is squashed, the face is deformed, the ears are moved forward, and the mask and the face are finally integrated”. While the series is “just a fun exaggeration, a joke”, it provides an intriguing study of the state of human interactions during the pandemic and evokes a very relatable sense of curiosity as to what goes on behind the mask.

Another project which incorporates an element of metamorphosis is Junxian’s most recent illustrative series Hu! Yes. The series celebrates the arrival of the Chinese New Year and all the good intentions Junxian has made for the coming months. We see him occupied in a range of wholesome activities: reading books, exercising, drinking more water and eating healthily. But since 2022 is the Year of the Tiger, the figure of Jun has metamorphosed into a jolly human-tiger character. Junxian enjoyed playing with the “anthropomorphic metaphors” in this series and combining this playful element with what he does best: elevating everyday life and its associated objects to moments of contemplation and beauty.