Lin Chunyan
Lin Chunyan’s first solo show in Beijing, Unity, is a much-anticipated event.
Lin has been a prominent figure in the Beijing contemporary art scene for the past thirty years, but his relentlessly honest and individually expressive work has defied catagorization. He has stood apart from the main movements of the Beijing art scene. Refusing to be influenced by fashions of the day, he has continued to explore a highly personal emotional world through his painting.
A recurring feature of his work has been ethereal, transcendental, figures floating across his canvasses. It is the artist’s spirit in its expressiveness, set free to soar, ascend, fall in imaginary landscapes of rich texture and gorgeous colour. It is also the human spirit which gives life to the natural world as it is observed and recorded by the artist – the unity of the subject and observer.
Lin has long been captivated by the intrinsic beauty of the natural world. His works are not realist, naturalist, depictions, although they are intricate compositions, but rather like the best of portraiture, he draws out a deeper essence. It is as if Lin is seeing beyond the surface of his flowers, plants, trees into another dimension of their beauty.
Lin is also a master technician. He uses heavy thick paint, often bulked up with bees-wax, to create dense textured surfaces. These he employs with an uncanny eye for three- dimensional perspective. With his big canvasses, the further one is from the surface the more one seems to enter into the picture itself. Yet he also employs this same skill in his smaller pieces. The pure floral pieces in this exhibition, for example, present a powerful and engaging three-dimensional perspective which draws the observer deeper into the subject.
Lin is also a master conjurer with colour. All the pieces in this exhibition are rich in colour, as well as texture, as the artist uses innovative colour to introduce the viewer into realms of nature and beauty that are uplifting and joyous.
Lin’s body of work over the past thirty years has moved through many stages of development and conceptual expression. From bleak urban settings in his early years as an angst-filled young man determined to make a life as an artist, to his rendezvous in Australia with nature and natural images full of warm light and brightness, to his return to Beijing and the wintery brittle landscapes of Songzhuang as he sought to re-establish himself in China, and now to these spring and summer works in this exhibition full of light, colour and hope.
In this exhibition, Unity, Lin reveals nature and the human spirit in a way we have not experienced it before.
Dr Geoff Raby Sydney
May, 2019
1962 Born in Beijing, China
Mentored by Mr. Wu Dazhi and studied painting with Ms. Zhao Yanchao at
Haidian Children’s Palace
1989 Visiting Scholar, College of Arts, Law and Education, University of
Tasmania, Australia
1994 B.A. in Visual Art, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Present: Lives and works in Beijing, China
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2019 Second Spring, Vermilion Art, Sydney
Unity, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing
2006 Beijing Dreaming, Bundeena Dawn, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney
2005 Lin Chunyan Oil Painting, Pen Pal Art Gallery, Guangzhou
2000 Lin Chunyan Oil Painting, Pen Pal Art Gallery, Guangzhou
Lin Chunyan Art, Tuancheng Gallery, Beijing
1995 Lin Chunyan Art, Panorama Gallery, Beijing
1990 Lin Chunyan Art, EMR Gallery, Sydney
1987 Lin Chunyan’s Painting, Museum of Heilongiiang Province, Harbin
1986 Lin Chunyan Art, Ancient Observatory, Beijing
Selected Group Exhibitions
2019 Be Beyond – 2019 Xi’an Contemporary Art Biennial, Banpo International Art Zone, Xi’an
2018 Unbounded – Approaching the History of Contemporary Chinese Art, Sea Art Museum, Weihai, Shandong
Art · Mate – Chinese-Australian Contemporary Art of 2018, Enjoy Art Museum, Beijing
2017 Evolution Urbanization, Tree Art Museum, Beijing
Dream Land, Sunshine Museum, Beijing
Flow Silent – Famous Artists of Contemporary Art, Jiali Art Space, Beijing
2016 All Rivers Run to the Sea, One Thousand Cliffs Stand Tall, East Region International Modern Art Center, Songzhuang, Beijing
2015 9th Songzhuang Culture and Art Festival 2015 – Documents from the Songzhuang Art Community, Songzhuang, Beijing
Micro-Art Explosion, Jiu-Ceng Gallery, Beijing
2014 Rong – 2014 Art, Doujiao Museum, Songzhuang, Beijing
2nd Art Harbin – International Contemporary Art, Harbin
Situation 2014 – Contemporary Art Invitational, Czech China Contemporary, Beijing
Colours – Art 2014, China Tongze Art Gallery, Beijing
2013 8th Culture and Art Festival of Songzhuang China, Sunshine International Art Museum, Beijing
Wild Art, East Region International Modern Art Center, Songzhuang, Beijing
Partner – Man and the Dog, AS Art Center, Songzhuang, Beijing
WE: 1994 – 2013 20th Anniversary Collective Songzhuang Artists, Songzhuang Art Center,
Not Strangers, International Artists living and Creating Art in Songzhuang China, Beijing
Chinese Contemporary Art Invitational, Great Master International Art Museum, Linyi, Shandong
2012 Art of Gansu – 2012 Oil Painting of Longnan by Songzhuang Artists, Longnan, Gansu
2011 8th International Korea (Chungju) Art Exhibition
Our Home, ITC Century Fortune Center, Beijing
Retrospection & Deviation, Heart Outside Body – Collection of Works of Overseas Chinese Artists, Times Art Museum, Beijing
2010 7th International Korea (Wuzhou), Wuzhou, Guangxi
Width – Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing
Oil and Ink – Oversea Chinese Artists Chen Yuanchu, Lin Chunyan, Bridge Gallery, Beijing
2009 China Project, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia
Quotations from 7 Xi, LDX Contemporary Art Center, Songzhuang, Beijing
High Noon Beijing Hour, Times Art Museum Beijing, Beijing
City Leader – Beijing Art Salon, China World, Beijing
17th Anniversary of China-South Korea Diplomatic Relations, Culture and Art Exchange, Sunshine Museum, Beijing
5th Songzhuang Arts and Culture Festival, Beijing
Chinese Situation, Chongqing
Waken the Future·post – art, Beijing
Lin Chunyan and Kang Yu, The Executive Centre, Beijing
Coming Home – 37 Chinese Australian Artists, Linda Gallery, Beijing
2008 Course – Yiling, Lin Chunyan Oil Painting, Ge Feng Contemporary Museum, Shenzhen
Southern Skies Chinese Artists in Australia, Australian Embassy, Beijing
2nd Oil Painting Invitational, East Region International Modern Art Center, Beijing
2007 Chinese and Overseas Artists, Qianshao Gallery, Songzhuang, Beijing
Pioneer Art, Qianshao Gallery, Songzhuang, Beijing
Made in Songzhuang, Sunshine Museum, Beijing
Out of Songzhuang, Huantie Times Art Museum, Beijing
On the East Pier, East Coast Art Museum, Beijing
Songzhang Original Creative, Original Art Exposition Center, Beijing
Suoluo Oil Painting, Suoluo Gallery, Beijing
2005 Still Away, Asia-Australia Arts Centre, Sydney
Images from the Labyrinth – Bundeena & Maianbar Art Trail Artists, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre, Sydney
2004 Chinese Art Today, Millennium Art Museum, Beijing
2003 To the Left – Discovery, Left Bank Gallery, Beijing
The View, Shine Ray Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
Impression of Life, Yan Club Arts Center, Beijing
2002 Entering Chongqing, Chirui Gallery, Chongqing
2001 View of The Spirit, Huanyu Art Center, Beijing
New State, Chinese Contemporary Art, Florence Gallery, Beijing
2000 Autumn, CTS Gallery, Beijing
Surface – Invitational Contemporary Painting and Drawing, China Women Activity Center, Beijing
1999 Works of Songzhuang Artists, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai
1992 New Wave Chinese Art, Australia
1991 Chinese Contemporary, University of Sydney, Sydney
1989 Works by Three Artists, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
1988 Salon Figuration Critique, Paris
1987-1989 Works by Contemporary Artists from Beijing and New York, New York, Boston
1985 Beijing Youth Art, National Art Museum of China, Beijing
Beauty comes from the reflection of the mind. It is positive, with a resonating and accommodating cultural foundation. I pay primary attention to works which are unique, artistic and with touching characters. "Beauty" is like the air that needs to be consciously experienced - life disappears when one fails to do that.
—— Lin Chunyan
