LIN Yen Wei Solo Exhibition

LIN Yen Wei's Solo Exhibition, showcasing his surrealistic paintings that recreate images, including public sculptures in parks or collectible miniature toys, captured by a camera or mobile phone.

Regardless of the object he paints, LIN infuses a surreal ambiguity, where time seems to be a transparent layer covering the object's surface. 

Over the past two years, I have incorporated more random and everyday elements into my artwork, such as plaster statues, candles, and micro landscape toys. I have also experimented with different materials, such as creating a willow branch out of sheet iron, which alludes to the willow branches held by a concrete bodhisattva Guanyin statue. I am also fascinated with objects that emit light continuously, like the Rabbit painting. I find luminous things like lamps and lights create a time delay to the eyes.

The willow branch is made of metal that has been coated with paint, giving it a slightly glossy texture. When painting it, I chose to depict it growing in an upright manner to create an unnatural and ambiguous appearance.

Whether it is architecture, landscape, statues, miniature toys, or daily life scenes, posed or random, the photos that surround us have a life trajectory. I just incorporate this trajectory into my works.

I was at first attracted by animal taxidermy. It's only after the photos come out that the visual sensations of reflection and color become apparent. When a real animal becomes a fake taxidermy and is viewed through a layer of glass, there's an ambiguity between real and fake. That's something that I'm drawn to depict. To me, light glare is a color block attached to a photo. A glare stands out in a photo. It seems to imply a relationship between shooting and being shot. There's a heightened visual and spatial perception.

This solo exhibition explores many materials and objects. One of the most important cores is the fit between the color tone of the photo and the material of the object. Perhaps there's a sense of clashing. They are the final decision resulting from the tension of the painting. It's about looking at the photo without distraction and completing the process.

LIN's works are characterized by a strong element of artificiality, whether he is painting landscapes, taxidermy, or plastic toys.

Through photography, he captures a moment in time where the object's life appears to come to a standstill.

He then extends this sense of time through painting, creating a surreal tension between artificial objects, photography, and the criticality of painting.

Born in Pingtung in 1987, LIN Yen Wei received his MFA in art education and creation from the National Hsinchu University of Education. He currently lives and works in Hsinchu.

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