NAVA Artist File: Damien Shen

DAMIEN SHEN: My name is Damien Shen,
and I guess I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist.
I practice, mainly, in the area of my cultural heritage,
which is Aboriginal and Chinese.
So, I focus on those histories and the stories that come from that.

NAVA: What are the main challenges you've experienced in your career?

DAMIEN SHEN: The main challenge, and I know that's one
that sort of was a common thread through some
of the other videos I watched, is time.
And, as a slightly older person with a family,
there are a lot of other factors that can influence your ability
to carve out that time to make art and to think about art.
My main way to counter that is try to get my family involved
in as many aspects of what I'm trying to do as possible.
My studio is at home, so the kids in and around me at the time.
Where I can, for various openings, my family comes
with me if it's interstate or even overseas.
They've come.
And I guess the measuring stick is if the family is happy and OK,
then pretty much everything's OK.

NAVA: Describe some of your significant international or national experiences. What have they enabled you to achieve?

DAMIEN SHEN: Nationally, a few years back, won the Emerging category
of the Black prize within a couple of months
of a national prize in South Australia,
the Prospect Portraiture prize, so at the same time.
So, that, in a way, is a catalyst to getting your name out there,
so I think that's probably part of the reason
why the trajectory was so positive in the beginning.
Internationally, I was super fortunate to get the Kluge-Ruhe residency,
which is in Charlottesville, Virginia.
And I stayed there for months at this museum in America,
which is the only sole collection of Australian Aboriginal art
in America.
And the thing about the international residencies
is you're treated like an international artist
each and every day that you are there.
And that, in itself, is quite an amazing opportunity and experience.
And I spent three months in the US in the end,
so I spent a month in New York and got to travel around a lot.
And the amount of institutions I went to and shows
that I got to see was incredible.
As an artist, you're sorta like a sponge,
so you gotta sorta take in everything and work out
if something is going to end up influencing your practice or not.
But, then, also, because my practice is so short,
it just sort of gave me the opportunity
to, basically, believe in myself.
It's like I'm here in America just doing this thing,
and it just feels so surreal.
If I take that sort of step back into when I began,
I was basically standing at the GoMA in front
of a Vernon Ah Kee drawing looking at that and going,
"I wonder if I can still draw, and if I can,
maybe I can have an exhibition."
And that was sort of where it all started.
Pretty amazing.

NAVA: What does art mean to you?

DAMIEN SHEN: For me, I think arts - it's basically like a frame of reference.
We view humanity through it in past, present, future.
And we can talk about so many things through the arts.
Personally, I've used art to help educate myself around my culture,
and the big part of it is the research that I do
before undertaking a body of work.
I educate myself, and, then, I turn into it, into art,
which, ideally, is something that is captivating for an audience
or can grab their attention for a moment.
And then, you deliver that knowledge that you've learned
to them as - in form of like an educational piece, to some degree.
It's just such a powerful thing.