RoleX 
Oil painting on canvas, 33 × 41 cm, 2024-2026
 
Artwork Statement
RoleX examines identity as a performative construct within systems of luxury consumption and exchange. The painting is based on a staged scenario in which I assume the role of a fabricated “wealthy buyer,” purchasing a Rolex watch on behalf of a grey-market dealer. The scene is observed indirectly through a mirror, capturing a moment where authenticity becomes unstable.
The mirror functions both as a compositional device and as a metaphor for circulation. It reflects not only the physical environment, but also the mediated nature of identity within the transaction. The watch shifts from commodity to unit of value, moving between participants who temporarily inhabit their roles rather than inherently possess them.
By positioning myself as an intermediary, I expose how access, status, and legitimacy are constructed through performance. Within Distributed Worlds, the work reflects on how identity is shaped across overlapping systems of desire, capital, and representation — where what appears authentic is often staged, and what appears personal is already embedded within broader structures.
 
Artist Bio
Qinyue Chen (Shuyang) is a London-based artist whose painting practice engages materiality as a site of embodied and psychological experience. Working across oil, pastel, and ink, she constructs layered surfaces that intertwine subconscious imagery with scenes of desire. Her work investigates how identity is formed, performed, and negotiated through personal memory, historical art, and contemporary theory. Drawing on references from Velázquez, Manet, and Van Eyck, Chen re-stages canonical imagery to insert contemporary subjectivities into inherited visual frameworks.