Wombs

Enter my body

and bear all it bears.

Gaze upon me

and meet the eyes that gaze

This project, inspired by readings on surrogacy and feminist ethics, explores femininity through the lens of the Other. Curvilinear forms intertwine traces of the female body, naïve visions of fertility, and the displacement of bodies and creatures, examining how maternal bodies are often externalised or instrumentalised. Infants and animals appear as radical figures of alterity—neither fully assimilable nor entirely external—challenging conventional notions of motherhood and care. In Wombs, maternal, animal, and hybrid figures co-exist in an affective space where otherness is sustained, and all bodies, including the viewer, relate as absolute Others, prompting reflection on the fragile and shifting boundaries of care, empathy, and recognition.

Gaze upon me, and your gaze will meet theirs.

Vanessa Chen’s practice is shaped by a multicultural perspective and an interest in the intersections of gender, memory, and identity. Working between abstraction and figuration, she reimagines the female body as a site of agency, intimacy, and transformation. Drawing on feminist ethics and the poetics of the body, Chen explores how relinquishing interpretive control transforms her paintings into spaces of co-creation, where symbolic forms invite reflection and the act of looking becomes an emotional and participatory encounter.

https://www.instagram.com/v_anessa_chen/