Do you remember your classroom blackboard? Chen Jiao takes us back to our first years of school: a glimpse into the world of language and letters, equations and charts. With layers of colorful accents, the childlike trees and found paper, she refers to her own childhood in southern China. The grey wash over the board mimics the grey sky of her industrial town; the trees evoke the trails where she discovered new pathways on long walks. The characters on the board remind the students of their post-Cultural Revolution identities as coexisting workers, yet the yellow chart creates a rating system for a spectrum of students. It is the paradox of Chinese education: how do you distinguish yourself when you must also live as one small part to a whole? No matter where you are from, Blackboard – Jintang Middle School, by Chen Jiao touches on the universalism of learning and its ability to shape both a society’s and child’s memories.

A word from The Artist

I was born in a “satellite city,” a place with lots of factories and warehouses for kids to play in. During my idle time (which was most of the time during my childhood) I wandered around the silent corners a lot, whiling away my days. At the granary, for example, I would watch the farmers drying grain on vast fields, and then wait for the sparrows to come and eat it; I would find two pieces of flint from the shoolyard’s rockpile to bring home; or I would take long walks along newly discovered trails and then try to find my way home before sunset… I loved killing time like this. But I never imagined that that such an idle childhood would help me construct such a rich inner world. The deserted riverbank, the playground corner, the shade under the trees - those places were paradise in my mind.

I want to recreate that paradise in my paintings, without any disguise, glorification or mystification, just the bare truth. And I hope that this truth will move those who share my experience.