Noumena and Other Spectralities
Phillip Chen: Prints and Paintings
APRIL 25 - MAY 30, 2025
EVENTS
ARTISTS’ RECEPTION
Friday, May 9, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Wege Gallery
ARTIST LECTURE | PHILLIP CHEN
Saturday, May 10, 10:00 am - 11:30 am
Wege Gallery
SATURDAY HOURS
Saturday, April 26, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Saturday, May 3, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Saturday, May 10, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Saturday, May 17, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Saturday, May 24, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
The Wege Gallery is proud to present Noumena and Other Spectralities | Phillip Chen: Prints and Paintings. Featuring varied art mediums and source materials from the artist’s collection, the exhibition unveils Chen’s enigmatic approach to image-making and his ongoing dialogue with the objects that untangle personal and familial histories and other states of affairs.
Situated between two rationalities, Chen acknowledges the notion of the noumenon—the “thing in itself”--existing independently of human perception, thereby remaining fundamentally unknowable to us; and the notion of hauntology—the lingering effect of cultural forms and social structures upon our current practices, beliefs, and things.
Drawing in viewers through merging photography and pictographic imagery, a sense of elusive order is established. The diagrams and line drawings indicate sequence and structure, implicating the photographic image in its quest to hold the viewer in an act of suspended inquiry.
Alongside Chen’s philosophical subjects of investigation, particular objects resurface in his work, alluding to the role of printmaking in the early advancement of scientific knowledge-- anatomy, cartography, and botany. The overlapping suggestions of the body, place, organic material, tools and the anecdotes that accompany them weave a slice of personal narrative, and the “things in themselves” remain on the periphery of perception.
Phillip Chen was born and educated in Chicago, IL. His work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally and is in the collections of institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, New York Public Library, Carnegie Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. His work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, and Iowa Arts Council. Chen is the recipient of both the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2018, he was named a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the U.S. nominee for The Queen Sonja Print Award, the largest international prize given to an artist working in print media. He is the Ellis and Nelle Distinguished Professor of Art and Design at Drake University, where he has taught printmaking and drawing since 1995.
