Feng Chao (b. 2000), a native of Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in 2023, and a Master’s degree in Painting from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London in 2025. He currently works and lives in London.

Feng Chao’s artistic practice focuses on ‘hyper-narrative’ and the ‘rights of digital images’. Nurtured by screen media experience, he selects traffic images such as ‘video games’, ‘memes’, and ‘animations’, and uses mediums including spray guns and acrylics. He ‘graft’ these images into a special comic narrative structure to create a series of absurd and complex hyper-narrative works.

He emphasizes the independent rights of digital images and opposes the discipline and hegemony brought by the worship of online images. He advocates freeing images from instrumentalization, rejecting fixed narrative directions, and letting the meaning of the works depend entirely on the viewer’s visual experience. By breaking the constraints of fixed narratives and image worship, he realizes the liberation of narrative and the revolution of image rights.

Exhibitions and Honors: “Guardian Art 100 Annual Exhibition of Young Artists 2024″, Guardian Art Center, (Beijing, 2024);”Integration · 100 Youth Art Season”, Rong Space, (Beijing, 2024);”Focus Art Fair”, Saatchi Gallery, (London, 2024);”Post Industrial Poetry” Group Exhibition, One Art Gallery, (Beijing, 2025);MA Painting Show, A&B Gallery, (London, 2025);Millbank Tower Fine Arts Show, UAL CCW, (London, 2025);Camberwell MA Show, UAL, (London, 2025);Camden OAG Group Show, Camden Open Air Gallery, (London, 2025);”Not to Be Prognostic” Group Exhibition, Purist Gallery, (London, 2025).

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?

I was born in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province in 2000. In 2023, I obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, and in 2025, I earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London. Currently, I work and live in both London and Hangzhou.

During my university studies, I accidentally came into contact with the spray gun as a creative medium. Having been fond of video games and animations since childhood, I immediately felt a strong resonance with this medium when I first used it. After repeated attempts and in-depth exploration, I finally chose to combine acrylic painting with spray gun techniques, through which I express my unique understanding and interpretation of internet culture and narrative.

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?

My practice explores hyper-narrative and the rights of digital images. In my work, I organically recombine and recontextualise diverse digital images to break their original narrative boundaries, creating what I describe as narrative-rich empty-shell images. When an image’s fixed original content is stripped away, it becomes an open carrier of multiple meanings, allowing the inherent rights of the image itself to gradually gain freedom.

How do the images you collect and reorganize influence the narratives that emerge in your work?

In my view, all visible visual symbols can be defined as images，including icons, dialogue boxes, foreign text, and lines. I merge these elements from different fields, each carrying distinct original meanings, to form layered assemblies of visual references. Within this creative logic, the final narrative of a work is not determined by my original intention, but shaped by the viewer’s personal visual experience and cultural background. This gives my art strong narrative diversity and interpretive freedom

Can you describe how meaning is created—or perhaps dissolved—through your approach to narrative?

During my creative process, I intentionally remove the fixed meanings and emotions embedded in the original images, while dissolving “meaning” as a rigid, predetermined value. I aim for my works to present pure imagery and atmospheric narrative sensation, rather than guided, definitive storytelling. This approach lies at the core of my practice: releasing image rights and liberating visual symbols from fixed interpretation.

How do you balance artistic integrity with commercial considerations, if applicable?

I prioritise academic integrity, creative purity, and personal artistic intuition before considering any commercial aspects of my work.

What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?

I am currently deepening my research into the rights of digital images and further developing my concept of the organic hyper-narrative machine. This year, I plan to create sculptural works alongside larger-scale paintings, expanding beyond two-dimensional boundaries to develop narrative expression within three-dimensional space. My goal is to explore image rights across more diverse mediums.

Text and photo courtesy of Feng Chao

Website: https://chovenchoven.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chovenchoven/