#  Crossings Gallery - Yi Cynthia Chen 

 



##  Reaching through Fog: Opaque Paintings 

 At the Gallery October 30-December 17, 2025 

artist: Yi Cynthia Chen

**How do you make yourself visible in a world full of noise?**

These dreamlike paintings invite you to linger in a world where reality and imagination blend, and everyday details—sunflowers, tangled roots, torrential water—become gateways to deeper questions. With vivid color and intricate detail, the artwork offers new ways to see our connections: to nature, ourselves, and to each other. Step closer and discover layered meanings beneath the surface—where what’s often overlooked quietly comes into view.



 

 [ Behind the Scenes: Watch here arrow\_circle\_right ](https://youtu.be/hxPolNqWi0w) 

 

       ![Yi Cynthia chen art](/sites/g/files/omnuum12051/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-10/MuseumBoston2000.jpg?h=cd308e6c&itok=kaE5y8G9) 

 

 



 

 



 

### Meet the Artist 

 

Yi Cynthia Chen grew up in Carlisle, Massachusetts and is based in Oak Square in Brighton, MA. She is Hakka-Chinese American. Yi Cynthia Chen has a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science from Wellesley College, and uses oil painting to explore dynamics between social constructs, daily experiences, and mental and ecological health.



 [ Learn more arrow\_circle\_right ](https://yicynthiachen.com/) 

 



      ![Yi Cynthia Chen headshot, wearing glasses smiling](/sites/g/files/omnuum12051/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2025-10/Yi_Headshot.jpg?itok=de_ptyTO) 

 

 

  

 



 

 

 

   ![artist with her painting on an easel in the forest](/sites/g/files/omnuum12051/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-10/20250906-A7406791%20-%20yi%20cynthia.jpg?itok=1xjid-8v) 

 

Chen won the Bradford F. Swan Prize for Oil at Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition in Providence Arts Club in Rhode Island, the Juror’s Choice Selection from Juniper Rag, and the Clowes Fund Fellowship for the Vermont Studio Residency in 2026. Chen is passionate about AAPI identity discourse and curated an anti-survey Asian-American and Diaspora exhibition in Distillery Gallery and No Call, No Show. Chen’s work has been exhibited in Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea, Kinhouse Gallery in Indiana, and Field Projects in New York.



 

##  Artist Statement 

My paintings are storytellers, each one stemming from tensions between opposing sides. The canvas is almost a visual courtroom, aiming to reveal as many perspectives of the narrative as possible in order to find a workable mediation. Faced with wrongdoings, dichotomies, ironies, the act of painting can expose new visual pathways. In this way, I view painting as a form of visual problem solving.

 

 





###    Read more from the artist  expand\_more  

 

I forgo the traditional underlayering or planning process, often starting my canvas on a blank slate. I build up my composition by drawing each element in paint as I go. The additive process can include incorporating material such as photography or metal. As I continue to layer new forms, the visual fascia emerges.

Root systems or emerging stems often connect the dots between my subjects. Although I was the first from my village to be born in America, my family’s roots are Hakka (“Guest Families”) farmers in South China. As so-called “guests,” Hakka farmers had to cultivate arid mountainous regions into fertile farmland. I am deeply inspired by this symbiosis between the persistence of nature and human resilience.

Therefore, people and plants are often depicted as co-protagonists (or co-villains) in my paintings. Both plants and people have also been labelled as invasive species, and I present nature to grapple with human dynamics of perception and belonging. As I build up my canvas, I add plants and architectural forms to foster conceptual analogies. For example, in my most recent painting *Mind Beyond C,* the water filter is filtering out the limiting psychological beliefs of the human subject. At the same time, the sprinkler from the water system is nourishing the environmental greenery, and the anthropomorphic ginseng plant that is growing out of her ear. These multiple points of connection allow a process of investigating patterns and relationships and to clarify through-lines between the inevitable contradictions of lived experience.

Painting became a way for me to remedy or at least represent this transition to understanding, from both individualistic and social perspectives. In creating mind landscapes, I aim to imagine new destinations for our journeys or manifest alternatives in our understanding of collective realities. It is this entanglement of concept that draws me in: the ability for art to earnestly probe at many sides of one story, and in this gradient between transparency and opacity of fact, find a grounding point.



 

 

 



 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

 

 

 [ Follow on Social Media arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.instagram.com/yicynthiachen/) 

 

 

 

 

##  About Crossings Gallery 

The Crossings Gallery showcases work by contemporary Allston-Brighton, Harvard, and Boston artists, complemented by artist talks, panel discussions, and interactive workshops. Open during Harvard Ed Portal hours, the gallery also features street-facing exhibitions for public viewing anytime.

Previous Exhibition:   
[*Familiar Faces| Living Spaces* by Hugo Nakashima-Brown](https://edportal.harvard.edu/crossings-gallery-hugo)