Lin Shan: Swaying
Beijing
21 Oct. 2023 - 30 Nov. 2023
Lin Shan: Swaying
Artists: Lin Shan
Duration：21 Oct. 2023 - 30 Nov. 2023
Opening: 4pm, 21 Oct. (Sat.), 2023
In the autumn of 2023, a modest apartment of over fifty square meters in Futian District, Shenzhen, serves as both a residence and a studio. Upon entering, there is a resting area of about six square meters, and the foldable bed can be stowed away in the wall cabinet. The separated inner room, typically a more private space, has been almost surrendered to creation. About thirty square meters are occupied by paintings. On the walls are small paintings, and the floor is covered with large ones. Lin Shan remarks that the trees in her paintings, which are as tall as a human, resemble those just outside her building and feel more genuine to her.
As individuals within the human community, we cannot detach ourselves from others and view ourselves in isolation. Lin Shan perceives the predicaments and challenges faced by modern people and reflects on her own situation. In 2021, landscape plants in the city and cultivated plants at home began to morph into various human postures in her brushwork, swaying with the wind and rain. While humans impose rules on others, they also face backlash. In the pursuit of control and the establishment of temporary senses of belonging, they lose the latitude of mutual freedom. Nectar serves as a reward for pollinators, while fruit is the recompense for seed dispersers. The surface thorns and internal venom are used to fend off predators. For the sake of survival, plants, like animals, employ their "animality" to utilize and defend against others. Humans, plants, animals—all share a strong commonality in the law of survival. In Lin Shan's artwork, humans and landscapes begin to merge into one, and the relationships between forms become clearer. "I am the other, and the other is me." Personified plants in the foreground, through the peephole of the middle ground, beckon towards the vast mountains and rivers in the background. Compared to her previous portrait paintings, she borrows the compositional methods of traditional portraiture but can hide traces within the mountains and forests. This allows viewers to constantly discover new perspectives while becoming observers themselves, just like her.
Lin Shan, Born in 1988, lives and works in Shenzhen, China. She graduated from the China Academy of Art majoring in Fresco in 2012, and apprenticed with Carlo Di Raco for her master degree from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts in Painting in 2015.
Lin Shan’s paintings depict the plants in her everyday life in an anthropomorphic way to express lust and the delicate relationship between people. The playful and lively shapes lead the viewer into a fantasy world with the relaxation and lightness she created. Most of the plants she painted were kept in captivity. She tried to replant the green belt plants or potted plants in the foreground of the picture into the wild in the background. However, this longing for wildness was finally fettered by the disciplines deposited in consciousness and body for many years.
