Albert Chen ’26 is a four-year Senior from Overland Park, Kansas. As a Prep and Lower Mid, Chen took music lessons and played violin in the orchestra. He currently takes Honors Portfolio. Chen is co-head of the Art Club and has curated two AAPI month exhibitions at the school. He is also co-head of GSA and co-president of the Pan Asian Affinity Group.
When did you start studio art? What drew you towards this art form?
When I was in preschool, we had coloring sheets, and I would always be the one in the corner drawing and coloring away. In my basement, I still have all of these drawings that I did. I was also in many group art classes at my local recreation center. My teacher was always warm and welcoming. Her energy and encouragement really inspired me to keep going.
What is one piece you’ve made that you’re particularly proud of?
One of my recent paintings is called “An Afternoon Oasis: Recentering My Womb in Candlelight.” I’m most proud of this piece, because it really captures my emotional psyche at the moment. The painting depicts a day in the summer when I was feeling really down. After laying in bed until 4 p.m., I gathered my shampoo, conditioner, and some food and went to take a bath to decompress. The painting is about finding pockets of breath and serenity in the emotional chaos of everyday life.
In what ways do your artistic talents influence one another?
The skills that I gained from choreographing dance, music, and studio art all inform each other. One of the skills is being able to create something dynamic or novel to capture people’s attention. Another way my artistic talents have influenced each other is through my ability to balance smaller systems and how they interact with each other in a bigger picture. In my painting “An Afternoon Oasis: Recentering My Womb,” I was balancing organic gestural strokes with more linear composition. This translates to music in terms of the balance of smaller components (like phrasing in a certain section of music and how it fits into the larger concept), as well as fluidity versus a strict rhythm.
What advice would you give to younger artists?
You need to be really in tune with your inner and outer worlds and figure out the relationship between those two worlds. Sometimes influences from the outer world can prevent you from hearing what is truly going on in your inner world and make it difficult for you to express that inner world. Outer world elements often come from judgment or thinking about what others might think of your work. I try not to overthink what the audience may perceive and instead draw from the center of myself. It takes a meditative practice to reflect and invite those feelings to come in and be able to funnel them into your work.
