In today’s rapidly shifting visual environment, images are produced and consumed at an extraordinary pace, reshaping how people absorb information and process emotions in response to moving pictures.
Rather than being overwhelmed by this constant flow, New York-based Chinese animation artist Aimee Chen I Wen approaches it as a system to be observed, analyzed and restructured.
Chen gathers visual fragments from daily life and translates them into symbolic motion, forming a coherent artistic language that restores intention and clarity within the noise of contemporary media.
For Chen—who completed her undergraduate studies at Taipei University of the Arts, and later pursued computer art at the School of Visual Arts in New York—animation is a distilled narrative form rooted in intuition.
“I do not pursue strict realism. Rather, I explore how personal impressions, fleeting sensations, and emotional rhythms can be translated into animated movement,” she said, stressing that this intuitive process allows her to construct scenes that viewers instinctively engage with.
“Through this approach, animation becomes a shared visual language capable of creating connection across different backgrounds and experiences,” she remarked.
With extensive academic training, she witnessed her progression from traditional fine art to advanced digital techniques shape her method of combining precise motion designs with bold graphic expressions.
Her work draws heavily from everyday observations and from the subtle emotional cues found in urban environments, animals and human interactions, with the themes revealing a consistent interest in the emotional structures beneath ordinary life.
Her animations appear in public spaces, screenings and publications, weaving themselves back into the city that inspires them. Through this circulation, Chen creates a dialogue between artistic imagination and the lived rhythms of urban spaces.
In recent years, her body of work has earned growing international recognition. Her animated short, Puppy Love was selected by several Oscar qualifying festivals including the Annecy International Animation Festival, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and the Zagreb International Animation Festival.
Puppy Love was inspired by a dog with a striking appearance and explores the playful projections humans place on their pets. The film blends hand drawn techniques with digital illustration, creating textured imagery and dynamic montage transitions.
Her 3D animated work, Oh! My God!, gained additional recognition when it was nominated for the New York International Film Awards and later showcased at the Annecy International Animation Festival’s MIFA booth as a representative work from the School of Visual Arts.
The film traces the journey from anxiety to calm through a meditative structure, using motion graphics and symbolic visual elements to depict tension and release.
Beyond animation, Chen is actively engaged in commercial illustration. Born in Tainan, a city she describes as slow paced, romantic, and rich in cultural warmth, she still gains a continual source of inspiration from it, shaping the tone and sensitivity of her artistic language.
Chen described her creative approach as a process of observing differences, identifying new possibilities, and engaging in visual re translation.
“Through careful exploration across diverse media, I search for structures that organize ideas and communicate meaning,” she stressed, noting that her works invite audiences to move between imagination and conceptual reflection, experiencing shifts between the physical world and the digital realm.
“I view the creative process as an opportunity to sort through inner emotions with clarity and care, believing that visual art carries the capacity to offer warmth and understanding,” she said.
She stressed that through each new project, she hopes to gain fresh insight into both the world and herself.