Isaac Tin Wei Lin

My abstract marks and interstitial webs are based on calligraphy. The calligraphic forms are an allegory of the written word and language but are illegible and alien. Growing up bilingual as a first generation American born Chinese, my environment was split between two worlds with a dualistic perspective, which drove me to seek a different more inclusive way. Painting and drawing helps me create and navigate my own space and search for universal ways of seeing and thinking. My painting process utilizes layers,repetition and patterns, which is a principle of contemplation, to help work through feelings of doubt, anger, anxiety, sadness and isolation. Lines are painted over and over to obtain an opaqueness bordering on obfuscation. They delineate time and place, acting as boundaries and camouflage. Using vibrant colors and layered brush strokes, symbols and shapes become entangled or isolated systems. Friendly animals and anthropomorphic objects are my avatars populating fields of color. I am interested in how using bold colors and a graphic style can allude to ideas of obfuscation, clarity, wholeness, emptiness, order and chaos.