For his upcoming show at Plum Blossoms Gallery, internationally acclaimed artist Chen Long Bin has produced a number of new site specific works in his preferred medium of choice: namely, discarded books, magazines, phonebooks and the like; all salvaged during his residency in Hong Kong. Through the skillful manipulation of a buzz saw, Chen transforms such materials into marvelously detailed sculptures. These include Buddha heads and warrior busts, which at first glance bear an uncanny resemblance to marble or stone. By bringing together various cultural meanings via text and form, Chen’s work provides us with poignant reflections on the problem of communication in a technologically driven world saturated with information.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1964, Chen Long Bin gained his Bachelor’s degree from the department of Fine Art at Tung-Hai University (Taiwan), before further pursuing a Masters degree at the School of Visual Arts, New York. His work has been exhibited widely in the United States, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, London, Singapore and Hong Kong; and can also be found in numerous public and private collections across the globe. He has been awarded artist fellowship grants from Taiwan’s National Endowment for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York and the Freeman Foundation. In 1995, he received the Visitors Prize of the Sixth Triennial of Small Scale Sculpture in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1998, the Silver Prize at the Osaka Triennial in Japan. Recent projects include “Reading Sculpture – Kids project” at Kidspace, Mass MOCA, and the “Dalai Lama Portrait Project”, the Dalai Lama Foundation traveling exhibition.

Chen Long-Bin Biography