Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Lin.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I’ve always been actively drawing ever since I was young, but it took me some time before I decided to pursue Art. Through high school, I was always very serious about academics like math and science, but I had an amazing art teacher who pushed me to also take art classes the Maryland Institute College of Art outside of school as well. This got me exposed to other artists, both students and teachers, who were very dedicated to developing their own specific language. In college, I explored this further as an art major, but always had the other foot in the science lab really deeply exploring difficult questions. I was also studying at Yale University where almost all of my peers were aimed towards professional, fairly conservative fields like medicine, law, and finance. The thought of being an artist was on my mind, but I had no idea what it would look like. It wasn’t until the year after college where I was working full time as a research assistant and coming home and painting/drawing/making work until the early hours of the morning that I really realized how deep my passion went. Art wasn’t just something I could downplay, but a language that would continue to well up inside me. During that year I worked on my portfolio so I could apply to graduate school and never really looked back.
In graduate school, I really honed down on what my language was. I had always been working through painting as those were the majority of the classes I took early on in the arts, but at Hunter College, I shared studios and classes with students from all skills, mediums, and backgrounds. I never could have predicted how much this would influence me to really search within myself for my unique language and message. I experimented with performance, sculpture, and printmaking, finding an affinity to time-based and interactive sculptural objects and installations. In these works I’ve been able to explore the full breadth of my interest in the world from exploring unanswerable philosophical inquiries to investigating scientific principles and properties. I’ve been in New York ever since moving there for my graduate program and have really loved every bit of it. The city provides an endless wellspring of artistic thinkers, makers, and opportunities to show and work.
Please tell us about your art.
I work primarily in the mediums of sculpture and installation arranging found objects in unexpected ways and trying to create subtly expansive environments. Much of my work is made up of a contrast between organic or living matter (plants, shells, bones, teeth) and the highly synthetic (plastics, polystyrene). This material choice is a way for me to explore our current ecology in which we have carved out our own habitat in the natural world yet seem to be incapable of finding a healthy equilibrium to survive in a sustainable manner. Part of my interest in this investigation is understanding systems and where lie within them. Why do we as humans believe we can exist outside of systems that we are deeply embedded in? In this exploration of our current ecological crisis, I often examine tricky moral concepts like examining my own complicity. Other bodies of my work explore ideas such as power and capitalism, entropy, and human nature, other systems, either human made, mechanical, or psychological/existential in which we exist.
Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
I think the role of artists has always been the same, to speak truth to the world. This can mean many different things depending on the context of the time they are living in. This is truly the responsibility of the maker. How can one explore their experience of the world and use it to broaden others’ experiences? In today’s world, we find ourselves in a very critical moment where we really need to be looking hard and inspecting what we think and know to be true so we can understand how we ended up here. How are the systems of power functioning in our government? How has technology and social media changed the way we communicate and how we operate internationally? How can these or are these being hijacked? Today more than ever there is massive power and income inequality which causes much of the world’s population to feel absolutely powerless. How can we as a people reclaim some of this power to fix the problems we see?
I think art also has the incredible power of diverse representation. Although you may not fully understand or agree with the artworks that you experience, artworks made by different artists provide a multifaceted, plethora of interpretations of experience. I’m excited to be teaching a course this Fall on Asian American Art at Hunter College to further explore what is often an underrepresented voice in history.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
You can visit my website to see my recent work and where to find my current exhibitions. I have some work in a group show in Queens, NY at Local Project Thursday Aug 16 – Sept 8. I also will be putting together an installation titled “What do you call the world?” at Hunter College in October.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://christopherlinstudio.com
- Email: christopher.d.lin@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christopherdlin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.d.lin
Image Credit:
All photographs taken by Christopher Lin.
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