Artist Statement

Florence Chen works with paper, one of the most familiar materials there is, to construct moments that ask for a second look.

Using paper quilling and mixed media, she builds intricate structures from repeating, elemental components: coils, strips, and layers that accumulate into something that resists easy reading. The medium is deliberate. Paper is ordinary, immediate, and easily overlooked, which is precisely the territory she's interested in. Her work explores the gap between a first glance and what reveals itself when you stay longer: the complexity hiding inside the familiar.

Each piece begins with an everyday subject or encounter. The work is not about the subject itself, but about the moment recognition shifts, when something known becomes strange, layered, and less certain than it first appeared.

It rewards slow looking.

She writes more about this in a short note, On Art and Craft. →