Richie Yuquan Chen

I'm drawn towards ceremonies and mystical encounters in search of some type of revelation that pulls me beyond ordinary life and asks something larger of me. I explore these crossings where courage and devotion take form of sacred environments.

Through the ritual of painting with meditation and music, I chase the moments that produce frisson: the involuntary shiver at a sunset, the expansion in my chest like a sudden extra breath during a piece of music, the physical charge of standing at the edge of something vast. This sensation becomes both my compass and my subject, wandering into otherworldly realms where reverie and perception blur into introspective, trance-like states. This serves as a bridge into lucid dreamscapes that reveal the extraordinary within the seen, where beauty coexists with weight, fragility, and uncertainty.

My work is in keeping with the Symbolist pursuit of the inner world, questioning the nature of reality by exploring dreams of the spiritual and collective consciousness. I seek to document my own evolving mythology by voyaging through new worlds: in search of transcendence, belonging, and transformation in an age of acceleration.