Written by Gary Lee╱Director of Cloud Gallery

In the past of human history, occasionally appearing people with multiple talents, for example, Leonardo da Vinci. Although an illegitimate child, never accepted formal education, but excelled in painting, math, architecture, music and astronomy, etc. and had tremendous achievement. Michaël Borremans from Belgium, a photographer at first, became an outstanding contemporary artist. Ａ. Savage, a musician and a visual art creator, connected and related vision and hearing to create various works in forms (music and painting) to record his life. Jeff Koons, once a stock trader in Wall Street, continuing his creation after work and finally becoming the most important Pop Artist after Andy Warhol. Academic artists have solid practice and ability on basics of creation, but they often are unable to discard the academic burden. On the other hand, non-academic artists, although without formal and timely learning process, they excel in various territories and sometimes have outstanding and astonishing performance.

History has come into the blooming years of Contemporary art. The variety of form, material and theme are no longer fresh and avant-garde. Every artist pursues to think out of the box and surpass the past. Studied in Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Lin moved to California, US because of health issue, but restarted her dreams of becoming an artist during her stay in California where there is always sunlight. After years of creation and exhibitions, she found her unique style of creation.

Lin’s path of creation has been inspired by figure sketch. She studied the traits of Impressionism, capturing the natural landscape, emphasizing on light and colors. She untraditionally uses smooth and flowing lines to portray nature. Next, she starts to pay attention on the still objects and landscape from windows, such as flowers, trees, still objects next to a window. Then she begins to focus on the interaction between people. When the modern electronic devices interfere with people’s interaction, she transforms from the concept of window and frame to monitors of electronic devices. The artist started from God giving light, colors and natural landscape to reach architecture created by humans through realistic windows. The human souls enter the virtual world of technology through the monitor of a mobile phone. In the past 12 years, you can see the following categories of Lin’s works: figure (portrait), linear landscape, still objects by the window, duplicated flowers, group image. From 2006 to 2019, the themes for creation varied in great range. Through the observation of creation method, it is surprising to find such deep learning in forms and techniques. In this series of figures, it is obvious to see the artist has completed her own unique creation style.

Creation to Lin is a self-breakthrough. Through rigorous work structure and professional studio equipment, it is not difficult to understand that she looks at creation as work, not some romantic or random sparkles. She sets goals and plans to execute. As a concept of creation, she finds usable material in daily photographic records. First, she uses computer for preparation, and records her ideas and thoughts. Once she starts with the composition phrase, she structure what is in her mind with simple lines and choose the base colors with instinct. As for technique, she uses traditional paintbrush and palette knives as well as roller, silk screen printing, template, embossment, syringe, dipping, duplication, transparant and intransparate techniques…etc. The actual painting process is in two parts: formal representation and destructive rebuild. In other words, she proceeds with the second part of creation on the existing painting sketch with tearing templates, usage of frames, applcation of imagery windows, extension of lines, change in colors, process of multi-layer paints, image matting, technique of thick and thin, …etc. to make the images unconventional. Even when it’s the same theme and composition, she still applies different methods. The artist is persistent towards this creation for the purpose of breaking through the old method of creation and unexpected new effect. Therefore, she continutes to break through.

In the always changing generation, Lin, originally a tech person, acutely observes how electronic devices change human behaviors. She discovers that there are always three groups of people in family gatherings, social events and friends gathering: husbands who discuss about work and use the mobile phones, wives who chat and sing and use the mobile phone, and children who play and use the mobile phones. Mobile phones serve different demands and social functions in different generations, roles, and groups. Electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets and computers penetrate people’s social group, making people in one place able to contact with people in another place. This is an example of loose relationship. Mobile immersion is the new topic in recent years, referring that people in crowded subway or parties wanting to escape from the current location but since they are bound to the place they could only escape to the world of the monitor of mobile phone to find their comfortable zone. Lin, however, thinks differently. She thinks that the business manager in the parties in her paintings are thinking everyday what is beneficial for people, so they work hard with mobile phones to handle the business. She admires these people’s attitude towards work, therefore records the conception with her painting brush.

In Lin’s works, Focus , One and Only, Roaming, Excited, etc., the figures in the paintings are repeatedly duplicated with solely white color. We can only observe the outline of figures to understand their characters and ages. It looks like the people in the daily life photos interacting with each other. Through decomposing to omit facial features and emotions, the audience can freely imagine and input different facial features and emotions with the remaining line of the face. This technique reminds audience of their previous family lives. Sometimes, the artist would use subjective colors to separate and lower the critical point of colors. She also contrasts and matches colors. to differentiate gradual layer of paint point, she uses plain and pattern style to define different objects and spaces with color blocks. In the works, Joining the Party, ChoiceI、II, Business First, What are You Doing?…etc., she mixes the colors on roller of silk screen printing to intentional interfere with the layers of space. The bright colors give the audience a refreshing experience. Lin chooses this method because of the change brought by the electronic devices. First of all, electronic devices make communication break through time and territory, echoing the interference of untraditional transparent space. Secondly, the colored roller lowers the depth of the view. For example, when we look at the monitor with everything flat, we can change the color of the screen to make it different from reality, similar with adjusting the display color of the screen. Many special effects intertwine on the image to produce visionary beauty, echoing the purpose of looking at the window on the monitor.

Cloud Gallery presents Kuei-Hua Lin’s sole exhibition, including works from these past three years:“Embracing the Future”,“Virtual Reality”,“ Young Minds”and “Sincerity ”.
“Embracing the Future”- describes children facing technical products since their childhood.
“ Virtual Reality”- as the main theme, extending various social perspectives “ Young Minds”- the most innocent child as the main character. Through children’s curiosity and interest, we go back to a state of no worries. “Sincerity ”- Portray the characters surrounding the artist through portrait painting to narrate the artist’s emotional connection in daily life.
Welcome everyone to see this wonderful exhibition.