Whenever Schoeni came to visit the artists in Beijing, the Gallery's representative Xiao Xu would call me beforehand to arrange an appointment. Then, almost on every occasion, they would leave Wang Yi Dong's home, descend the stairs and knock on my door. Wang Yi Dong and I live in the same building, he on the 22^nd floor, and I on the 12^th.

In my opinion, Schoeni's expression was always one of sheer exaggeration, both revealing and dynamic. He was a foreigner, and therefore it seemed fitting. He would become so excited whenever he saw paintings, as he moved vigourously amongst them. No matter what issues we happened to talk about, he was always attentive. He always seemed to be in high spirits, full of vim and vigour. He never seemed to tire, nor want to stop. My general impression of Schoeni is identical to the one described by my brother, Chen Yu, in his article.

Looking back, I had heard about the Schoeni Gallery, which had successfully represented a great number of admirable artists, as early as seven years before I began working with Schoeni. At first I only associated the name Schoeni with an important art gallery. I wanted to get to know the Gallery in order to collaborate with it, but I didn't know how to go about it. Until through my contacts, Guo Fang and Chen Yu, as well as my work Red Babies, my wish of working with Schoeni became a reality. The name Schoeni then came to mean something tangible, it became the name of a real person, someone who would come and visit me in my studio. I was already 40 years old. Time was pressing, and there was so much to learn and do. It seemed to be the beginning of everything. With Schoeni's experience, standard of work, and his enthusiasm for art, I strongly believed that I had found the right partner. Nothing could go wrong. It was as if I had been primed for this collaboration all along. I put all my focus and effort into producing works of the highest standard in order to capture the attention of the viewers, and bring out exactly what I wanted to convey. During each encounter with Schoeni, I was most concerned about his every reaction to my works: his expression, his emotions, gestures, opinions, and the topics we discussed. All of this was feedback from which my works were generated. With the help of his feedback, I was able to combine what I had learnt, in order to assess my own work. I relied on Schoeni as I did not have the confidence to directly face the reaction of the viewers. Through Schoeni, I was able to gage the viewers' response. Schoeni personified my audience. He discovered the messages behind my work, just as I discovered a viewer and built up contact with this viewer. The experience was rather like a joint production, but with me in charge of implementing the process by giving a concept a visible form. With his supreme capacity for understanding, Schoeni was able to present the work successfully to those who required it.

If it had not been because of Schoeni's sudden passing, how would I have been able to write all of this? It all seems too fast, too sudden. I can barely come to terms with what has happened. There will no longer be an opportunity for me to tell him face to face that I did not want him to look down on me and so, over the years, I have been quietly soaking up what I desperately needed from him. He was such a unique character. The qualities he possessed were ones, which I longed for. These qualities were able to touch upon my sentiments and help me widen my vision.

Yu Chen
June, 2004