I call my art “Microsocial Art”. By telling ordinary people's stories in my artworks, I create new insights into the contemporary society we inhabit. For me, art is a tool for social studies. It provides me with the perfect means to explore and witness other lives, and the ideal medium to communicate my critical thinking, which challenges a variety of social issues.
I am fascinated by the question of ‘why people live the way they do?’. I often spend years living within a community or embracing a subculture, along with conducting surveys, reading, and debating with academics. This is a vital part of my thought process – it provides me with both the knowledge and the time to develop strong critical thinking.
The critical thinking behind each project is the most important part of my art. It requires me to experiment with all artistic disciplines in order to best represent my ideas. Therefore I practice a wide range of art forms such as painting, film, installation, performance art etc.
My art is always changing. I enjoy stepping out of my comfort zone and reinventing my methodology constantly. I am not interested in creating perfect works, but instead I delight in producing more vigilant, youthful and stimulating ones.
Aowen Jin is a Chinese-born British multidisciplinary artist and social commentator, and is a fellow of Royal School of Art. She was named by The Times as “one of tomorrow's great artists” and selected as the one of the 100 most influential women by the BBC.
Her exhibitions have been covered in the press by BBC Radio, BBC TV, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) and others.
Her works have been collected by The Queen and Tony Blair, along with award winning national museums, art galleries and theatres such as the Horniman Museum, Hippodrome Theatre, Compton Verney Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham Science Museum, Birmingham Cathedral, Goldsmiths College and University of London.
Aowen is regularly an insightful social commentator for current affairs organisations such as the BBC, CCTV and Al Jazeera. She is a guest speaker and lecturer at Oxford University, Cambridge University, Coventry University and Leeds University, and she is a mentor at the Southbank Art Centre (Royal Festival Hall).
She is the co-founder of fashion events site Chicmi.com, which in just 3 years has become the world biggest fashion events platform, working with over 4,000 international brands to manage their fashion events across London, New York, LA, San Francisco and Miami, and luxury resale platform MAYAIA.