QIN SHEN
BY ZENGYUAN MA
QIN SHEN's (b. 2001,Jiangsu, China) practice explores memory, material, and temporality. Rather than treating memory as documentation of the past, her work approaches it as something unstable and constantly transforming through time. Growing up in a small town in eastern China undergoing rapid urbanization, and later moving between cities such as Shanghai and New York, she reflects on questions of belonging, displacement, and the relationship between body and landscape. Working across painting. monotype, and installation, she transforms materials, traces, and repetitive gestures into forms that carry memory. ZENGYUAN MA met Qin to dive into her practice and where it comes from. In this conversation, the two artists discuss how personal experience, material processes, and social change intersect in Qin's work.
Qin Shen, Little Flower, 2026. Oil on board, 12 in x 12 in
Zengyuan Ma: Your work often focuses on the transformation of memory rather than simply documenting it. When did you first realize that memory itself could become a material for artistic practice?
Qin Shen: I think since the very beginning. I'm someone who constantly looks back on my past experiences when I grew up. In elementary school and middle school, I had many writing practices in my Literature classes. When having the writing exams, I started to realize that writing based on my own experiences and stories would get me higher scores. Then all the writings became another form of memory archive for me. When I developed an interest in art and studied Illustration for my BFA degree, I began creating illustration books based on my childhood stories. The visual narratives got me further attracted to memory as an artistic medium. When creating works about my own experiences, I get to be the most honest and true version of myself to the viewers. I always believed that honesty is one of the most important qualities in a work that can invite people into the time-space I create and hold the most meaningful conversations.
ZM: Your process involves collecting, sorting, coating, and layering materials. What do these repetitive gestures mean within your practice?
QS: Across media, these gestures process memory through accumulation and erosion, allowing the emotion and feeling to wander and react freely and spontaneously and genuinely in the memories. The repetitive work is also a meditative practice to me, which can bring me into a Zen flow to get peace from daily anxiety. I let my thoughts explore freely when doing these works and bring me back and forth between past, present, and future.
ZM: Your practice moves across painting, drawing, monotype, and installation. What different roles do these media play within your work?
QS: Monotype and drawing are more spontaneous practices to me, which carry the serendipity in the actions of doing them. They are instantaneous expressions of my feelings and thoughts. Paintings and installations require more time to let the ideas settle and react with each other. They are usually completed in a longer time span, from weeks to months.
ZM: Your work often connects bodily experience with landscape. How do you understand the relationship between body and land?
QS: Bodily experience develops within the landscape. The land, which further refers to the environment and cultures that we live in, nurtures and shapes the body and soul of oneself.
ZM: You grew up in a rural environment that later underwent rapid urbanization. and you have also lived in cities such as Shanghai and New York. How has moving between these places influenced your practice?
QS: I have witnessed the tension between pastoral landscapes and accelerating urban consumerism. Farmland has been replaced by urban infrastructure, leading to fading traditions and disappearing ways of life. Frequent relocation has exposed me to diverse cultures while producing a feeling of estrangement from past fixed identities. This condition compels me to investigate belonging, displacement, and the relationship between body and landscape. And I started to explore the theme of ruins, as so many objects and sites have existed and disappeared. When such places or objects disappear, they leave behind traces of experience. A ruin can form at the moment one witnesses the absence of a place once filled with meaning. This raises a central question in my work: Are we in the past or are we in the present? Are we remnants of what once existed, or extensions of its transformation?
ZM: The Kitchen God's Blessing originates from a memory of your grandmother resting outside the kitchen. Why did you choose the kitchen as the central space for this work?
QS: Because my grandma's kitchen carries the most pastoral vibe, which I kept longing for after leaving for big cities. The Kitchen God's Blessing reflects on my grandmother's life as a farmer in a small town in eastern China and the rhythms of agricultural and domestic labor that shaped her daily existence. The work draws from the memories of the days I spent at my grandma's place last summer. Grandma was sitting on her old wooden stool outside her kitchen, resting from that day's farming work. That was the time they just harvested the wheat and sorted out the canola seeds for oil compression. I make this piece as a tribute to my childhood's pastoral life and my grandparents' dedication to being village farmers, supporting their children to see the outside world. I appreciate the simple yet highly focused lifestyle of my grandparents. They wake up when the cock crows along with the sunrise, go to the field, cook meals with vegetables from their fields and meat from the animals in the backyard, and rest when the sun goes down.
ZM: Memories of your grandmother and father appear frequently in your work. What role does family history play in your practice?
QS: Family history shaped my early cognition and understanding of the world. I believe in the Buddhism philosophy that "when drinking water, one should think about where the water comes from". Family is the origin of my identity, hence my practice. The pain from the family memories stimulates me to create images that hold broader discussions.
ZM: If viewers could leave with only one feeling or image from your work. what would you hope it to be?
QS: Themselves mirrored from my works.
