-- Written by Karen Smith
Born in Beijing, Chen Man 陈曼 graduated from the photography department of the design school under the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. Prior to her graduation, in 2003 she had already begun to lay the fondations of her career with the launch of a series of covers she produced for the Shanghai-based fashion magazine Vision-China's first attempt at a progressive style magazine, inspired naturally at that moment by Wallpaper magazine. Between 2003 and 2007, she created a sequence of cover images that were unique within the history of Chinese magazine covers.
Arty, manipulated, fantastical, almost over the top, the images captured the socio-cultural fascinations of the moment: a visual confluence of every nuance of glamour, surface, virtual energy and freedom of the imagination that was seeping into the bedrock of the emergent youth culture of the period. With hindsight, Chen Man's photographs define that moment, simultaneously heralding the present, and paving the way for a future in which, courtesy of her success, this type of visual language is certain to become ubiquitous. It is amazing to reflect that half a decade ago, Chen Man was forging a brave new path through the prevailing mediocrity: that she was almost single-handedly precipitating a visual revolution.
Chen Man's choice of field within the arena of photography- style. beauty, and fashion - dovetails with her innate fondness for alamour, and her insistence upon perfected beauty. As a photographer she is licensed to present fantastical illusions. She takes the illusions far beyond the mere moment captured in conventionally shot photographs. Her approach is first and foremost about taking total control of the image she creates: the motivation behind that control being to achieve the ultimate in beauty. Chen Man does this by accentuating every feature of her already beautiful models to a perfection that is almost unbearable, even as it defies the gaze to look away.
