Profile
 Colleen Chen, born on March 22, 2000, in Shanghai, China, is an interdisciplinary visual artist working with moving images, photography, game environments, and installation design. Through practices in visual storytelling and spatial experience, exploring how image, sound, and interactive media construct alternative ways of seeing and understanding everyday life. Works often draw on personal experience, employing observational and experimental approaches to reflect on the relationship between the individual and their environment.

Education
University of Auckland
Master of Fine Arts 
2025 - 2026

Employment
Remote Illustrator
UGLY (Shanghai) Advertising Co., Ltd. 
2024 - 2025

Primary Art Teacher
The Wonder Centre
2023
Skills
Narrative Development
Visual Storytelling
Graphic Design
Typography
2D Animation
Video Editing
Game Development (Unity, Blender)
Installation Art
Documentary Photography

Exhibitions
MADE IN A DAY
Silo 6
Auckland
2025

ELAM Graduation Show
Elam School of Fine Arts
Auckland
2025



Colleen  ChenArt Portfolio Work Collections 2019-2025 Email: wuyuflower@126.com

Project 02

Confinement,  Delusion  and The Fallen Flower
(2022-2024)


This project reflects on emotional experience during the pandemic and the process of female growth, exploring contemporary social issues and psychological states through storytelling and visual language.

The project began with a series of illustrations derived from memory and meditation, which serve as the conceptual foundation for narrative design and animation.

Two animated films were finally produced. Confinement (2021) uses the metaphor of a cocoon and a moth to express isolation, transformation, and longing for home. Delusion (2024) focuses on psychological illusion and self-perception under social pressure.

















Produced with: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Clip Studio Paint
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Confinement

About 24 days have passed since she realised that she is trapped in this closed and silent space. There is nothing here, and the only way she relied on to calculate time was to count the number of times the light leaked from the window at the upper right of the space. She doesn't know whether the light comes from nature or man-made objects. If the light is the illusion of the outside world disguised by cold and lifeless artifacts, she can only lament helplessly that she can only live on false hope even if she is trapped in this lonely and barren space; It would be great if the light is natural light, but it seems that there is no function for this place to let her go in and out. Even knowing that it is real natural light is useless. At most, it can only be a trace of comfort in her heart, but it is always better than being cheated by her sincerity, being cheated is like the moment when the candy that she had been looking forward to for a long time in her childhood tore open the package, it fell to the ground like a flying insect that can't predict its flight orbit.

She can't remember exactly when and why she was locked up. Perhaps it is because human beings have almost perished because of a disaster, and she is one of the individuals selected to survive. The empty and quiet environment is eating away at her senses. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she still retains her consciousness. In such an environment, all she can do is imagine and think. She looks at the light and shadow projected from the window onto the opposite wall. A moth sways into the light. 



"Moth. Maybe I am also a larva. Here is the pupa that wraps me. As long as I have experienced eclosion, this boring dream will end."



The moth flies for a while with its unique, unpredictable trajectory, then stops and doesn't move anymore. The whole space falls into silence again. She slowly closes her eyes. She begins to get bored with meaningless associations. This time, she chooses to become a part of space completely, become an insect in the pupa completely. 



"After all, insects don't think."



This is her last thought before her consciousness sinks into the chaos.



限阈


 自她意识到自己被困在这封闭且寂静的空间中已经过去了差不多24天。这里空无一物，她所依赖用于计算时间的方法也只有数着自空间右上方的窗口处时不时泄入的光亮的次数罢了。至于那光究竟是来自自然界的光还是人造物发出的光，她也无从知晓。如果那光是冰冷的、毫无生机的人造物所伪装出的外界的假象，她便只能无助哀叹自己即使已经被困在这寂寥贫瘠的空间中也只能凭借着虚假的希望度日；如果那光真是自然光那就再好不过，但她所在的地方貌似并没有供人出入的功能，即使知道那是真正的光也无济于事，顶多只能成为她心中的一丝慰藉罢了，只是总好过付出的真心被欺骗，就好像儿时期待了很久的糖果在撕开包装袋的那一刻如无法预测飞行轨道的飞虫般无情地落在地上那样令人感到不甘。

自己究竟是何时又是因为何种原因被关起来的她已然记不太清了，这空旷安静的环境正在蚕食着她的感官，好在她还多少保留有她的意识，处在这样的环境里她所能做的事也只有想象和思考了。她看着从那窗口处投射到对面墙壁上的光影，一只飞蛾跌跌撞撞地闯入她的眼帘，她百无聊赖地进行着无意义的联想：

“飞虫，也许我也是一只幼虫，这里是包裹住我的蛹，只要经历了羽化，这场无趣的梦境就将结束。”

那只飞蛾以那飞虫独有的无法预测的行动轨迹飞行了一阵随后停了下来之后再没动作，空间再次陷入了死寂。她缓缓闭上双眼，这次她选择成为空间中的一部分，彻底成为蛹中之虫。

“管她的，虫子又不会思考。”

这便是她的意识归于混沌前最后的想法。
Title: Confinement
Medium: Video
Time: 4min51s
Dimension: 1920px * 1080px
Year: 2022


Confinement (2022)

 Bilibili

Delusion

She doesn't want to wake up because she can't face the real world. She can't accept the reflection she saw in the bathroom mirror with empty, muddy eyes last week. In contrast, in this land of delusions that abandons all prejudices and rules, no one will judge or care about her. She doesn't want to be the strong one in the eyes of the public; she only wants to be the master of her world.



The colours here are not as pure as her ideal, but compared to the reality, she feels it is good, and she wants this moment to last forever if it is possible. The world outside there has too much chaos, too much bondage, too much anxiety. At least no mirrors here, so she has freedom and autonomy.



She could not fit into the atmosphere of those people wearing masks, on the stage constructed by lies, pleasing each other with false and flattering smiles to exchange for what they wanted. Even though she had tried to fit into the template that people admired, her clumsy and stupid nature would drag her down from the exquisite stage. Now, she is lost in hallucinations so that she no longer has to drag her tired body against the outside world with her flagging spirit.



"I am alone, always have been, and always will be." She speaks to herself.



The rampage of imagination gives her the confidence to become the creator of the world. When she tries to make her puppet, she can't find satisfactory materials to fill the cavity in the puppet's chest. So, she lowers her head and looks at her chest, not knowing when she can no longer feel her heartbeat; there is only a hole left in her body.




幻境


她不愿醒来，只因她大部分时间都无法面对现实世界，她不能接受上周从浴室镜中窥见的那有着空洞且浑浊不堪的双眼的倒影。相对的，在这抛弃一切成见与规则的狂想的国度，没有人来评判她也不会有人在意她。她不想做世人眼中的强者，她只想成为自己世界的主宰。

这里的颜色其实也并非如同理想般纯净无瑕，但与现实相比她觉得这里很好，可以的话她希望这一刻成为永恒。那边的世界太过纷乱嘈杂，充满了束缚与焦虑，至少她在这里可以得到自由和自主权。

人们都带着面具，在被谎言构筑的舞台上用虚假谄媚的笑容取悦彼此以换取各自所需，她融入不了这种氛围。即使她曾尽力贴合世人所推崇的模板可她那笨拙又愚直的天性也终将把她拽下那精美的虚幻舞台。她感到厌倦，在幻觉中沉沦使她不必再拖着自己疲惫的身躯以她那萎靡的精神去对抗外面的世界。

“我是孤身一人，一直如此，从今往后也会是这样。”她说。
想象力的暴走给予了她成为世界造物主的自信。当她尝试制作属于她自己的人偶时她却怎么也找不到令她满意的材料填进人偶的胸腔。于是她低头看向自己的胸口，不知何时她已无法感受到自身的心跳，那里所留下的只有一个空洞。



Title: Delusion
Medium: Video
Time: 3min
Dimension: 1920px * 1080px
Year: 2024


Delusion (2024)

Bilibili

The Fallen Flower

The girl runs, her long hair flowing like gauze behind her.

Her steps are like the shooting stars.

Her shadow, swaying on the asphalt, darts across the mottled walls. As long as she does not stop, she is the spirit of the wind, the embodiment of freedom and youth. All the noise of man-made machines, all the noise of other people, has nothing to do with her.



She runs happily, then something breaks into her vision.



There is a flower on the ground, a mass of red that fell from a branch into the road. It is so striking, so obtrusive, that the surroundings and herself all become dim because of that mass of red. She stops and stands still in front of the red. She lifts it from the dirt of the earth and stares at it entranced. At that moment, she forgets to run. She just wants to indulge in the magic of red.

As if enchanted by the siren's song, she wants to know all about the red, and to do so, she has to get closer, closer until she can smell the decay of the thing in her hands.



She is startled by the tingling sensation in her palms, black living things crawling out of the red.



Fear. Dismay.



It takes only a moment to fall from heaven into the abyss.



When the object falls to the ground, it produces an inaudible sound.

Like just waking up in a dream, she fixes her sight and looks down, and the red is no longer as gorgeous as it was at first sight. The dark spots on the red suggest corruption and death.



She resumes her steps, with a last disdainful glance at the temptation.



What awaits her next? A wonderful encounter or another seduction?



She runs, feeling the breeze against her face, like a newborn.


落花


 少女奔跑着，长发在她的身后如同轻纱般流动。

她迈步，身影如同流星一般。

她的影子，摇摇晃晃的映于柏油路上，迅速划过斑驳的围墙。只要她不停下脚步，她便是风的精灵，是自由的化身。一切的人造机器的轰鸣，世间的一切喧嚣都与她无关。

她愉快地奔跑着，有什么闯入了她的视野。

地上有一朵花，是自枝头掉落于道路中的一抹红色。那色彩太过惹眼，太过突兀，以至于周围的景色以及她自身相对于那抹红时都显得黯然失色。她停下脚步，静静伫足于那红色之前。她将它从污秽不堪的地面上救起，出神凝望。那一刻，她忘记了奔跑，她只想尽情沉溺于那红色所携带的魔力中。

如同被塞壬的妖歌蛊惑般，她想要知晓那抹红的全部，为此她需要凑近，再凑近，直到她能闻到那从手中之物传来的丝丝腐朽气息。

手心处传出的酥麻触感使她缓过了神，那是从红色中源源不断爬出的黑色活物。

惊讶、恐惧。

从天堂坠入深渊只需一瞬。

手中之物落地，产生的是微不可闻的濒死之声。

她如梦初醒，定眼再看时，那红色已全然没有了初见时的艳丽，红色上的点点深色暗示着腐败与凋零。

她重新迈开了脚步，在最后对诱惑之物送去轻蔑的一撇。

前方等待她的是美妙的邂逅或是又一次的蛊惑？

总之，她奔跑着，感受拂过脸颊的微风，犹如新生。


Top Work Collections 2019-2025