Dan Chen was born in China, in the province of Canton. Dan’s love affair with art began when at age three he peered above the tabletop in breathless fascination at the magic which seemed to flow from his father’s paint brush--and then tried to imitate it. At age 15, Dan started receiving more formal instruction. After over five years of working under the critical eyes of his mentors, he was finally allowed to display his art at a state show. There, he won the first of many awards, this one for outstanding technical ability in Chinese watercolor painting on silk. Dan immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1984. He then enrolled at San Francisco City College and studied graphic design and illustration at Academy of Art University. After three years of schooling, Dan started his own business creating unusual ceramic art, which quickly became distributed through such outlets as Gump’s, Macys, Bloomingdale and other prestigious stores. Even though his business thrived, Dan found that the demands of running such a large enterprise not only took too much time from his family, but also did not allow him to explore the entire range of his skills. Determined to start over, he simply walked away from his business and began a new life in Eugene, Oregon. Since that time, Dan has begun focusing full-time on nature and wildlife art in both painting and sculpture. A solid foundation in many art forms has allowed him to perfect his own particular methods. Dan's experience with the eastern and western disciplines of art has provided the inspiration for the extremely pleasing and dramatic style he has developed. Whether the media is oil, pastel, watercolor, or sculpture, each piece Dan creates is an exquisite and masterful expression of line, color, light and energy which is truly his own. The art of Dan Chen is a marriage of the finest qualities of eastern and western art style and technique. “Nature and wildlife are a major theme in my work. I cannot fathom the mystery yet perfect balance of the natural world. Its color, shape, design, function, even its emotion excites me. Nature teaches me how to paint and teaches me how to sculpt.”