Lin Hairong

As a winner of the prize for excellence in the Dragonair Emerging Artist Awards, Lin Hai Rong has been holding the increasing international limelight.  Lin Hairong’s paintings resonate with a profound sense of peace. The simplicity of her pure colour backgrounds, child-like figures, depicted in subdued tones, has been shown in a variety of forms that take influence from cultural-revolutionary imagery and other historical sources. Lin is a great admirer of ancient Chinese culture and attempts to evoke a sense of the contemplative calm that she feels whilst immersed in traditional literature and art. It is there that she finds her spiritual refuge from the clamour of contemporary China where life is transforming at a pace that is difficult to comprehend.

Lin’s world is full of gentle humour and delicate satire; her playfulness reveals itself through the staged countenance of her figures. When viewing Lin’s works, we are primarily struck by the gentle lyricism of her paintings, with their subtle humor, femininity and playfulness. This is precisely how Lin intends her artworks to be perceived. She does not intend to be brazenly critical but connect with people on a deeper level, encouraging sincere and prolonged contemplation, rather than bursts of indignation.

Completed in her fine, delicate painting technique, Lin’s compositions are devoid of any superfluous decoration and she manages to capture the serenity and harmony of life’s quiet moments; of which the tranquility is all too rare nowadays, as Lin put it, “too quick to change”.