Yi Ching Chen is a Taiwanese painter currently living and working in Paris. She is best known for her large scale polyptychs. These multi-paneled screens depict contemporary landscapes garnished with explosions of blossoming flowers. Her other large works also derive their inspiration from nature using traditional Japanese painting techniques and materials.
Yi Ching Chen is one of the rare contemporary nihon-ga artists in Europe, who has lived in Japan and studied under renowned Japanese masters. Admitted to the faculty of Fine Art, at the Kyoto City University of Arts in 2002, she was a student of YAMAZAKI Takao, the distinguished master of the Nitten movement. In 2003 she won the prestigious Grand Prize of the Shouhaku Museum with her painting entitled « Kabocha » (« Pumpkin »). Her talent and potential were recognized by UEMURA Atsushi, one of Japan’s great masters of nihon-ga and she was awarded a studio and the opportunity to study under his guidance following her Masters Degree. In 2004 she had her first solo show at the Nasic Square Gallery in Kyoto.
Greatly admiring the work of the late 19th century Impressionists, Yi Ching Chen moved to France in 2004. She continues to develop her own artistic research and pedagogy in Paris where she has an established nihon-ga atelier. She is the author of the first book in French on the practical technique and history of nihon-ga « Découvrir la peinture nihon-ga , Art Traditional Japonais », published in September 2012 by Editions Eyrolles.
