Armed with paint and a critic’s pen
Lin Hsin-yueh (林惺嶽) is an artist of exuberant creativity and humanistic care who has been an active figure in many important events in the Taiwanese art world since the 1990s. For his outspoken mannerisms and lifelong pursuit of art to living with Parkinson's disease, Lin has been called a dynamic "art warrior."
Lin, 80, is a very special person in Taiwan's art scene. He has been deeply involved in the field of painting in a committed path for more than 50 years, using an exuberance of energy to demonstrate cultural beliefs in a style of his own. He is also a prolific art critic and history commentator, who has been employing strongly critical and sharp writings since the 1980s to express his own unique insights into Taiwan's arts development and cultural affairs.
As someone serving multiple roles, including art educator and curator, he was still able to carry on with painting. In 2010, when Lin crossed into his 70s, he once again turned a new page in his creative career, overcoming many bodily ailments to take on the challenging task of creating paintings of extraordinarily large sizes.
The natural landscape under Lin's brush have always had a rich and vigorous atmosphere. Using acute observations of Taiwan's scenery with an artist's eye, Lin used color, light, expression, and association to induce an emotionally penetrating warmth and stability that inscribed his profound feelings about Taiwan as his cradle of life.
Painstaking observations and interpretation of nature are infused in his lifetime of painting. Brilliant works from every stage of the artist's life show how Lin deploys scenery as a canvas for mirroring social and cultural development in Taiwan. Of particular note are his captivatingly large-scale creations of recent years. The epic grandeur of these works that is shaped by sheer size, structure, and magnificent colors will introduce viewers to a new spectrum of Taiwan's beauty through Lin's eyes.