As thin and transparent as a cicada’s wing, the glaze base featured in Kuei-Hua’s composition is a vivid contrast to its strong and powerful subject, reminiscent of Ma Yuan and Shia Kuei’s “one-corner composition.” Polished like a jade, rough like a rock, stirred like bubbles – it is not only our first impression of Lin’s works but also the charm of them, a series of paintings finished with precision, intensity, contemporaneity, and clever subtlety.
Although how we paint is always based on how we plan, Lin, like Gille Deleuze’s analysis Francis Bacon, begins with destroying any pre-established rules concerning the image itself and her own imagination, allowing her hand to lead the action. After rounds of adjustments, the work is finally completed. She seldom abandons what she has already finished. No one can imagine what she has been through and what measures she has taken throughout the whole artmaking process. For her, painting is her labor-intensive work. The days spent in her studio, where she takes advantage of the color spectrum of natural lighting, crystalize her labor into a precious gem. The great amount of water-based pigments used in her works such as watercolor or acrylic paint reveals her eagerness to express herself through art and to establish her signature. She also utilized a palette knife to scratch and flatten the base paint, making it a thin transparent membrane, on which the artist creates a layered plane of splendid visual intensity characterized with splash, script, and scrape. The subject of the paintings does not seem to be a priority to Lin, after all, it is quite impossible to find an untouched subject in the category of figurative painting. Therefore, Lin focused more on the techniques. She lets her eyes and hands to replace mind and brain. The paint’s spontaneous flow follows the movement of the hand, establishing a unique artistic style different from any painter before her.
Allowing the had to move before thought does not suggest that the artist reject any consciousness in painting. Instead, she lets the strokes and paint to stretch freely on the canvas, while the result of what they grow into is again polished and adjusted carefully by the artist. Lin’s paintings are complicated for that they have been through laps and twists. However, it is the only possible way for the artist to locate herself and to establish her artistic signature, just like those great painters before her.
The reward of her technique-exploring is the surprising and unexpected artmaking process demonstrated on her works. Examples include needle splash, the use of palette knives, or the transformative and diverse textures crated on the dried flat acrylic maintaining a rich, solid, flowing, and organic visual quality. The simple elements are carefully arranged with Lin’s perfect subtlety, while the randomness is the interaction between consciousness and spontaneity. “Thought before strokes,” it is not to say that her works ack consciousness, but the random brush walking is the only way to fight against a tradition of painting which is heading toward its own end and to establish a unique artistic expression. Lin’s painting is lively and spontaneous while it is also rational and discreet. I am not suggesting the artist’s works are overwhelmed by contradictions, but the balance between the two helps achieve the most satisfying consequence – brisk but yet modest personality, highlighted with the strongest visual impression as her tour de force.
The artist often rejects the conventional practice of chiaroscuro. Instead, she utilizes a large scale of strong colors to visualize intensive shapes, creating a double-edged effect as the abstract expression captures the spirit of the object. In other words, we see the tree, and we also see the forest. She loves painting flowers and fruits, but she does not follow the traditional still-life composition which we have been familiar with. The partial view of the close-up makes the image more abstract, and the powerful contrast harmonized with nature is the most precious source, just like the natural breeze and light hidden beneath the sculpted layers.
Lin’s art is bright and precise, but the diverse potentialities also demonstrate her adventurous determination. She pursues the enchanting visual experience, while she also attempts to visualize a vigorousness in her paintings. The dominant portion of strong colors seems menacing, but you will soon find in it a perfect execution of subtle and rapid strokes if you take a closer look. The visual effect is sober and yet rich, like a lively waltz in the brisk breeze, revealing both the excitement and sweetness of flowers and fruits. The most distinguishable is the almost primitive vitality, the labor-intensive process of the painting gathering the effort of mind, hands, brain, and eyes. The artist believes that to begin with actions (“painting strokes” to be precise) is the only way to achieve originality. Such a trick rule she sets up for herself is how she avoids repetition and insipidity, while it also allows her to create a conflicting but yet balanced image.
The risk-taking journey to search for one’s uniqueness encourages the artist to keep exploring new styles and expressions every time when she finishes several paintings in a series. It is never easy quite challenging and risky indeed. However, Lin’s uncompromised artistic practice and dedication has made the adventure conquerable, replacing obstacles with a continuity of constant diversity. Here, we see a different Lin – a brave and fearless challenger that no threat of failure will stop her in this journey toward absolute originality. The painting brush silence our eyes, offering a moment of meditative serenity between viewers and paintings. Meanwhile, viewing becomes a pleasant experience for viewers to hit the road with the painter. Her artistic journey continues, as she rejects to give up her experiment and the attempt to make a breakthrough. We surely will wait for her to make a new turn, where we may be welcomed by a totally different vision, though derived from the same narrative – the style without a style, the determination to take challenges, the experimental techniques, and the surfacing to a wonderful vision.