Zeng Fengxuan

Zeng Fengxuan 曾冯璇 (b. 1999, China) is an artist working with sculpture, installation, and the artist's book. She has a background in printmaking and book art and received her BA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China (2018-2022). She is currently studying for an MA degree in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, UK (2022-2023).

In 2022 Fengxuan was awarded the China Scholarship Council (CSC) scholarship, enabling her to pursue her MA at the RCA.

Recent selected exhibitions include “Mind the Gap” NOWSHOWING, Black Swan Yard, London (2023), Sensing your Senses, M P Birla Millennium Gallery, London (2023), Art Nova 100, Guardian Art Center, Beijing (2023) , Everything is Temporary, London (2023), Royal College of Art FESTUS project “HUNG, DRAWN & QUARTERED” with Standpoint Gallery (2023) and Graduates Art Fair, Wuhan, China (2023).

Fengxuan currently lives and works in Beijing and London.

Fengxuan's work delves into the intricate interplay of cognitive disparities, the discursive intricacies, and the inherent contradictions between individuals. By excavating and recontextualizing existing objects derived from personal experiences, Fengxuan manipulates their relationship with meaning. Moreover, she harnesses the power of the book as conceptual framework, this exploration renders a fluid entity, that both frames and propels her practice.

Fengxuan has becoming aware of the subconscious influence of books on her previous artistic practices during the preceding years, thus, she began to try to turn this passive influence into active research. "My Mind Has A Change of Heart" (2022), "4 Chapters" (2022), "you shall read it" (2023), and the ongoing exhibition project "Read me, please" (2023), these practices documented her experiments of the intentional engagement with books as vehicles for contemplative thinking, collaborating with the matured art format.

In her recent practice Fengxuan's exploration of the conceptual structure of books unfolds through three distinct avenues: the foundational logic inherent to books, the nuanced act of reading and its sequencing, and the interplay between language and the dissemination of information. These inquiries serve as experimental investigations into the methodologies of art-making, enabling her to articulate her perspectives and viewpoints on the predetermined meanings, presences, and absences intertwined with objects, all within her self-constructed charter.

"Read me, please" "请阅读", paradigmmies.

“Read me, please” ("请阅读") aims to answer and echos the epistemology, cognitive differences, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of established meanings in current times. From a sculptural perspective, the light grey sinuous platforms are stacked and connected, standing independently on the ground and holding up a number of small objects. Their forms are the result of dialogues between books and public and private space. These discussions sometimes attract attention, some go unnoticed, and it is in this gathering that books are both present and absent. Within the realm of fixed logic, they are inevitably overlooked, only to be resurrected with renewed significance through novel dialogues and contextual constructs. So, how can the presence of books and other entities be apprehended?

The Paradigmmies on the top, the rigid geometrical forms and elusive irregular shapes, both oscillate amidst truths and truths, finding stability within fragmented and hearsay definitions, without exception. One Paradigmmy proclaims itself as mountains and rivers, yet echoes the quadratic equations of yore. It claims to be Saturn, existing in every second line of coffee shop menus, and thus its oscillations diminish, while CMYK values gradually align. In this way, it declares that all of this is an immutable reality. 

Medium:

Sponge, plaster, Jesmonite (water-based casting resin), clay, twine, wire, acrylic paint.

Size:

55cm × 74cm × 316cm

"Read me, please" "请阅读" Cyclonone Sensepeadia preface

Medium:

Artist's book, digital print, hand bound

Size:

14.8cm × 10.5cm × 2.6cm, 36 pages

artistbook book-art bookbinding cyclopeadia epistemology meaning

4 Chapters， installation perspective

"4 Chapters" is understanding

The four grey sculptural forms consist of hollow geometric shapes at the top and solid hemispheres at the bottom. The cover briefs them as if it is the block standing ahead. The audience experiences the work by walking around it and poking them to make them sway. Chapters “hear” words and wobble along but remain stubborn on the determined path. How do you identify the shapeless road and the cognitive box when the world is moving? So, making briefs and extracts by painstakingly swimming backwards against the current of time seems an easier way, tasting the fountain of memory and archive of the world, guessing the answer behind the cover of the book.

Medium:

Cement, wooden board, acrylic paint

Size:

65cm × 80cm × 187cm

book geometry sculpture

Medium:

book, plaster

Size:

variable

book-art epistemology installation moving-image

My Mind Has A Change of Heart, installation view

My Mind Has A Change of Heart, “Mind Changeology” 我想我的主意改变了主意，《改变主意学》

My Mind Has A Change of Heart , reading video 我想我的主意改变了主意，阅读互动视频

The book serves as the guidebook of "definition of meaning". Mind Changeology, re-questioning the meaning of words and symbols, the discourse in the book serves as a "reference" metaphor for thinking patterns. The complex and fragmented image pieces filled the video， which interacted with the audience by not understand the work. The panic and anxiety brought about by this uncertainty make the guiding program "Change Your Mind" join the dialogue between the video and the audience, in order to decipher the information. The tripartite game among the book, video and the audience discusses the possibility of constantly thinking about the definition of meaning outside the original context.

The definition of meaning is abstract, and what we expect is a concrete representation of meaning."What's the point of this matter?", does the question make sense?If so, who gave it meaning?What if a thing was given meaning but changed instead?If everything can change one's mind, what's the point of giving meaning?

Medium:

Moving image，artist's book

Size:

512pages, video: 4 minutes 35 seconds

book-art epistemology installation moving-image

Zeng Fengxuan

Medium:

Size:

Medium:

Size:

Medium:

Size:

Medium:

Size:

Medium:

Size:

Social

About

Royal College of Art