Collection Online
Search the Collection 搜索M+藏品
M+, Hong Kong, © Estate of Richard LIN Show Yu
Richard Lin 林壽宇
Work on Paper #32-9 紙上作品32-9號
1957
Richard Lin was born in Taiwan and briefly educated in Hong Kong before moving to the United Kingdom in 1952. He studied architecture there, and developed a practice painting in primarily white on white. Although he began to work with metal and plastics after declaring that ‘painting is dead’ in 1984, he maintained a minimalist approach throughout his career. In 1976 he returned to Taiwan, where he advocated for geometric abstraction and minimalism as an alternative to modernism in China.
In Work on Paper #32-9 two jet-black oil marks float in high contrast against a background of crisp white paper, their oily residue forming a halo around them. The direction of their ‘drips’ defies gravity, a momentum that foregrounds the material properties of the oil paint rather than the artist’s movement. The marks also evoke brushstrokes, possibly referring to calligraphy and gestural painting. The simplicity of the composition, the emphasis on materiality, and the ambiguity of the two remarkably symmetrical forms give the work a naturalistic rhythm and allure. This naturalism corresponds to the artist’s interest in embedding Taoist principles in his art practice.
Loading