EXHIBITED:
Island Life - Michael Lin Solo Exhibition, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, November 4-26, 2006

Born in Japan, Michael Lin stayed in Taiwan for two years during his teenage years but lived in America for the majority of his schooling. His later experiences while living and traveling around Europe, Shanghai, and Taiwan made him especially sensitive to his surroundings. In Michael Lin’s second solo exhibition, Indoors, which was held in Taiwan in 1996, an embroidered pillow with two grandmotherly figures attracted an especially lively discussion among viewers. To this day, after about twenty years, the quaint yet fashionable embroidery pattern comes to mind when discussing artist Michael Lin.

Since the 1950s, traditional Taiwanese embroidery fabric has been widely used in quilts in nearly every household, window curtains, auspicious emblems of all kinds of colors and patterns, and more. Michael Lin’s main reason for choosing to use traditional Taiwanese embroidery as the medium at the outset is because it represents a material used in everyday life that resonates with viewers. The most common interpretation of art critics of his embroidery pieces stem from issues such as identity, conflicts between tradition and modernity, dialogues between different dimensions, globalization, and localization. In the end, what makes art so appealing—and moving—is that it is deeply rooted in our lives.

This piece, “159-5389-8855”, painted in 2006, was inspired by the floral patterns of carpets Lin picked from Xinjiang and Tibet, areas filled with borderland ethnic cultures and characteristics. Various kinds of flowers in full blossom and articles with symbolic meanings are displayed in many bright, captivating colors including peach, pink, orange, and yellow. While the warm, brilliant colors and symmetric composition yield a steady and pleasant presentation, this kind of work—which contains clear political connotations—is relatively rare in Michael Lin’s repertoire. This work made its début in Lin’s solo exhibition Island Life at the Eslite Gallery in 2006 and was showcased in Michael Lin’s first retrospective exhibition, The Color is Bright the Beauty is Generous, in Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy, in 2010. In each venue, three sets of paintings were hung on a wall including the floral pattern carpets from Xinjiang and Tibet along with an enlarged print of a Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwanese Residents. The series is titled with strings of eleven-digit numbers, which is a nod to Chinese cell phone numbers and a suggestive reminder of Taiwan’s plight for people to ponder over.