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Monumental Drawings of Skin
A longtime painter, my inclination to explore surfaces as a means of gathering knowledge has led to these drawings of skin. This external layer of the body partially reveals yet also conceals an internal world, intertwining observable fact and imagination. Abstracted by ambiguous cropping, these images reflect the overabundant and perpetually compromised state of modern visual information. An unlikely inspiration is the malleability of the excessively “factual” image, such as the MRI, that only becomes useful through individual interpretation. My meticulous renderings of computer-scanned skin, orifices, and hair often incorporate disruptions caused by breath condensation and twitching. These informational gaps within a seemingly factual image open the way for experiencing complexity, enigma, and the subjective.
These immensely magnified body details aim to engage conflicting visceral experiences of discomfort and fascination. Requiring an almost unimaginably slow process of looking and drawing, I transform a speedily gained and often disregarded image into a prolonged introspection. I extend time and space to allow microscopic observations to accumulate and develop into unpredictable connections. Foggy windows, animals, aerial topographies, and the cosmos share some of the essential properties depicted, for example. Paradoxically, the disarming familiarity of human recognition may invite self-conscious reserve.
These colossal orifices, pressed against glass, convey a tension between intimacy and vastness that evokes conflicting aspects of the current human condition. They are vulnerable to scrutiny yet mysterious. They possess unique identifiers, as specific as fingerprints, to those who recognize the shape of their chin, lip, or wrinkle, while conveying anonymity. Heroic in scale despite being randomly chosen, they nevertheless seem confined, perhaps by individualistic longing. Although truthfully represented, they can be easily misread, due to deliberate confusion between genders, as well as between various parts of the body. Thus my work seeks to prolong and intensify the awareness of visual, psychological, and physical perception, inviting varied and contradictory interpretations.
-Cynthia Lin 2-08
SKIN RE-SEEN
I explore how, what, and why we see through drawings based on visceral, unforgivingly revealing computer-scanned images. The wonder of technology, its limitless visual access, enables my work, and the artificial lighting and portrait size further articulate its debt to photography. However, I resist the modern habit of quick recognition and speedy dismissal. Instead, my work seeks to extend both time and meaning through the experience of looking. I select highly detailed fragments that inspire prolonged scrutiny. Through the process of drawing, an intensified awareness of visual, psychological, and physical perception develops, inviting varied and contradictory interpretations.
I focus on the undesirable, such as wrinkles, blemishes, and hair. Attentively drawn, these gain a sensuous presence that engages tensions between the physically repulsive yet visually seductive. Paradoxically, the familiar begins to feel strange; skin that is perpetually visible evokes uncomfortable intimacy. Conflicting desires to see both the real and the perfect drive a loving craftsmanship applied to unwelcome reminders of aging, partially mediated by a clinical distance, yet inescapably accurate. Thus re-seen, sights that are usually deliberately ignored become reflections of human complexity.
The perception of space and time shift in these magnified, tightly-cropped, hyper-detailed images, so that microcosmic structures evoke macrocosmic connections. Lips and river canyons share a topographical logic. A chin in harsh light acquires a heightened tactility that evokes the moon. Common characteristics of orifices result in confusion between mouth, eye, and ear. Close observation enables the discovery of essential properties of matter that connect human to animal to vegetable to stone.
-Cynthia Lin 10-05
DUST DRAWINGS: RE-SEEING THE BARELY VISIBLE
My ongoing purpose is to prolong the act of looking, to invite discovery of multiple and contradictory perceptions that unfold over time. Convincingly factual depictions of dust attract curious scrutiny that sharpens the eye, so that what initially seems random is recognized to be purposefully arranged individual calligraphy. A wonderment, inspired by miniature, evolves with continued looking, leading to other reflections of limitlessness-- the cosmos or a desert landscape, for example. An unwelcome moment, such as an encounter with uncleanliness, is lengthened and enriched through engaging details that intensify conflicting responses of seduction and repulsion. Thus time increasingly alters the experience of viewing these drawings, delivering restless reconfigurations, elusive as dust itself.
Ever-shifting perceptions drive this work, which seeks to demonstrate the enriching complexity of the transient and the irreconcilable. The entrypoint occurs at the edge of what can be seen, where the real and the illusory unaccountably intertwine, allowing the inexplicable to become believable.
The panel drawings initially appear to be luminous empty surfaces, containing barely discernible lines that invite closer inspection. When near enough to identify these intimate marks, the viewer literally loses sight of the overall picture. The whole can only be experienced by mentally reconstructing fragments. Unique and arbitrary chronologies develop, as each individual creates the work through their own process of seeing and remembering.
-Cynthia Lin 2-02
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