Chen Yiching

Traditional painter Yiching Chen creates floral artworks that are delicate but exquisitely detailed, brimming with beautiful blooms that draw the viewer into whimsical scenes. Chen’s figurative and landscape paintings are made using a Japanese pictorial technique known as Nihonga. She is one of the artists credited with keeping this centuries-old painting style alive. 

Chen was born in Pingtung in Southern Taiwan in 1975. She studied computer science at the University of Taichung and started pursuing a teaching career in 1998. However, in 1999, Chen took a course in Japanese Nihonga and fell in love with painting. She moved to Japan to learn more about the technique, and, in 2000, began studying at the Kyoto University of the Arts. One of her teachers was the prominent Nihonga painter Takao Yamazaki.

In 2003, Chen earned the grand prize at the Shōhaku Art Museum in Nara, Japan. She graduated with a master of fine arts degree in 2004 and held her first solo exhibition at Kyoto’s Nasic Square that year. She then relocated to Lyon, France, to continue her art studies. Chen won the top prize at a painting and sculpture salon in Décines-Charpieu, France, in 2006. She moved to Paris in 2007 and won a bronze medal at a painting salon the following year.

Chen has exhibited in Japan and Europe, as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong. She continues to live in Paris and since 2011 has taught Nihonga at the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts. In 2012, she wrote the first French book on the subject of Nihonga, Découvrir la peinture nihon-ga : Art traditionnel japonais. The book has become one of the leading references on the style.

On 1stDibs, find Yiching Chen paintings, mixed media works and other art.

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.