The Sixth Best-Selling Artist In The World: Li Chen

The sixth best-selling artist in the world stepped out into the corridor... His petite frame seemed swamped by his black kimono and he shyly waited for his team to find the perfect place for our interview. As he peeked out through his dark-rimmed glasses and his long, dark hair that framed his face, all I could think about was that I had found John Lennon’s Taiwanese doppelganger... And, silly as it seems, I was soon to discover it probably wasn’t that far from the truth, particularly if you’re talking in terms of innate talent, a man who spends a large part of his time thinking there’s something bigger out there and a fan base that would make his peers envious...

But for the moment, as he quietly followed his team into the interview room, I began to question if this was the man who creates those robust looking cherub-like Buddhas that defy gravity with their engineering. However, when he took a seat by the window and started to talk about art, Li Chen came alive and his presence filled the room.

Talking through an interpreter he spoke animatedly, giggled, hugged his knees in tight and leaned forward, and flicked quickly through his catalogue to hurriedly explain his works to me while looking back at his interpreter hoping she was keeping up with his energetic explanation and making me understand his passion for the piece. Whether his interpreter was or wasn’t keeping up (which she did most ably) didn’t really matter. The fact that he was staring straight into my face and stabbing with his finger at a photograph, Mandarin or no Mandarin, brought the message across loud and clear

—Li Chen lives and breathes his work.

He doesn’t need to be at his home in Taiwan to work, he is always sketching in his notepad or if he doesn’t have that to hand, he will sketch on whatever is... napkin, scrap paper... “The last time I did a sketch, it was when I took a flight from Shanghai to Taipei.” The only thing that connects his first sketches, is that he tends to do them at night. It’s when his head hits the pillow: “I come up with ideas at midnight or early morning. I get thoughts from my sleep and I will just pen it down.”

He may do his first sketches at night, but Li Chen returns to each sketch again and again. “I have to think about weight, size and keep going back and altering the sketch. About 60 per cent of my work is on paper,” says Chen. “I will look at how I will disperse the weight of the sculpture on paper. It may collapse because of the structure. I plan it out not just because of the cost, but because if I get it wrong it could be dangerous.”

After plotting out this feat of engineering on paper, Chen moves on to creating a wooden frame and adding clay. (Chen’s sculptures are known for “floating,” but these lightweight sculptures in reality weigh several hundred kg.) It is only after that he will move on to to recreating his sculpture in bronze.

But this effort is worth it, as one of his most recent works Floating Heavenly Palace broke its USD172,644 maximum estimate and sold for USD306,364. For someone who started his career making Buddha statues for a monk, Chen is often asked how he feels about his works now reaching such astronomical numbers. He says that this has nothing to do with him: “It was created by external forces and people. How I see another person—it doesn’t matter if you have money or not.”

However, with his works selling for such record-breaking prices, it should be no surprise that he sports a few rock-star trimmings, including two MTV-style black on black cars parked outside his home.

But this doesn’t mean he is willing to part with his pieces that easily… In fact, one serious Singaporean collector confided that she had to meet with him three times before he agreed to sell a piece to her. She has since bought three more pieces, and they have become close friends, but she had to prove to him that she loved the pieces as much as he did. “Every piece of work is like a child. When they adopt my child. I hope they adopt it because they love him or her,” says Chen. So when pressed on which piece is his favourite child, he refuses to spill the beans. “Most of the pieces carry emotional attachment. They tell the story of my life. If my house was on fire and I needed to save one?...Well, they are too heavy to rescue. I would burn holding the sculpture,” he laughs.

So if he’s not doing it for the money, what is he doing it for? He could be on a beach, counting his Taiwanese Dollars. He doesn’t need to be in a studio from dawn till dusk. “When I work, I am very alone and relaxed. Spirituality is healing for me. A breakthrough for my mind,” he says. His work has also seemed to help him deal with tougher times in his life, like the passing of his father. “With the piece Sky [it shows a young boy looking up to the sky]... When my father died, I don’t know where my father had gone. I thought that if I can fly I would like to fly to be with him and speak a few more words with him before I come back down.”

He has also used his work to live out his fantasies, such as with his work Soothing Breezes Floating Clouds. He thought about what he would do if he had super powers, he decided he would sit at the edge of the world. However, his self-deprecating nature couldn’t help but add a dribble, as, if he was sitting at the edge of the world, he thought it would be cold and he would surely have a runny nose.

Chen explains that he has a clear idea of what the piece means to him, but he’s aware that each piece will mean different things to different people. And he’s okay with that. If you look at the sculpture of the Mind, Body, Spirit, and see the gold box as a treasure chest, never never land or... it’s your choice—he just wants the piece to make you think.

“I have a piece in a museum in Seattle called Eternity And Commoner that shows a duke, royalty and commoner all in one piece. I wanted to show that you may have a lot of resources now, but the next generation you could be a commoner. It’s a cycle,” says Chen.

Time is a theme in Chen’s work.

As we are using more time-saving devices, Chen says that we seem to be concerned that we don’t have enough time, and he asks the question, with the time that we have, are we using it as well as we could. “With the piece Ordinary People, I question if over the last 1,000 years, have human beings actually evolved. I created a sculpture and burnt it. Raises the question... have humans developed to be better?”

Li Chen is now working on his exhibition “Ordinary People” that he is taking to China in November. "I am now in preparation for an exhibition at 798 gallery in Beijing. I think that anything that touches on human nature it’s good to have it in China,” says Chen. “With his eyes twinkling, and with a smile on his lips, he adds... “Maybe you think I have a hidden agenda...” Artist, passionate, anti-establishment... maybe my John Lennon comparison isn’t so ridiculous after all... ■