February
2004 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Zhi Lin: Crossing History / Crossing Cultures: Paintings
and Drawings
Koplin Del Rio Gallery is pleased to announce our first exhibition
of paintings and drawings by Zhi Lin. His monumental paintings,
each 12 x 7 ft, and small studies are the result of more than a
decade of work on the project, Five Capital Executions in China.
The five large paintings, Starvation, Flaying, Firing Squad, Decapitation,
and Drawing and Quartering, are profoundly significant as portrayals
of history and cultural critique. Zhi Lin’s experience in the
Cultural Revolution as a child, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre
in 1989 as an art student in London, shaped his art. The epic scroll-like
paintings in this series, when examined closely, reveal intense
visual statements against violence and cruelty.
Zhi Lin’s extraordinary compositional technique is informed
by traditional Chinese landscape painting and early Netherlandish
old masters’ work, as well as his critique of Modernism and
Post-Modernism. His subject matter is drawn from references in European
religious paintings from the 15th to 17th century and 20th century
Chinese literature. Lin uses multiple medias, as well as fusing
various art forms, from high art in Europe and China to folk art
in Tibet. These paintings provide the audience with an experience
not only for an understanding of the process of constructing images,
but also for cultural awareness by crossing the barriers of time
and cultures.
The scenes of crowds going about their everyday activities, as executions
are taking place nearby, conjure ideas about “cruel and unusual
punishment” and the question of execution, which has been scrutinized
throughout the history of the United States. Lin’s paintings
remind the viewer of the horrors that have left their mark in history
and to future generations. This body of work confirms the notion
that art is a means to critically examine society, as well as a
vehicle for change.
While Zhi Lin was studying art at the China National Academy of
Fine Arts in Hangzhou, he traveled throughout China visiting and
studying Buddhist caves and Daoist Temples, which housed the most
important traditional Chinese sculptures and frescoes. He went on
to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and the University
of Delaware, and finished his Master of Fine Arts in both institutions.
From 1992 to 2001, he was a tenured faculty at Southwest Missouri
State University. Presently, Zhi Lin is on the faculty of the School
of Art and the China Studies Program at the University of Washington,
Seattle.
