Toomey Tourell Fine Art: Monika Lin: Small Offerings

Monika Lin: Small Offerings

Though born in Manhattan and spending many years in the Bay area, Ms. Lin currently works and resides in Shanghai. “Small Offerings”, her newest body of work, is a departure from previous exhibitions in its intention of exploring the medium of resin to the fullest extent before the shaping and conceptualizing of her subject. To this end, she has pared down her palette, limiting herself to white, gray and silver, also integrating the yellow hue that is characteristic of the medium of epoxy resin. What emerges is a kind of ghost world where shapes and the layers themselves take on a weight and conceptualization of their own. Stripped of color, the composition moves to the forefront.

The title, Small Offerings, is in the words of the artist, “a derivation of the Mandarin characters which make up the word “trace,” 微量 (wei liang). The specific characters’ meanings are elusive, as a direct correlation does not exist in the English language. Wei is translated as “small” but actually means “a thing so small it is almost not there” and can be used in conjunction with almost any other word to render it a shadow of its former self. Liang is a “unit of measure” for objects as well as the abstract, but not for people or animate things. The idea that these paintings were what remained of a past situation, object or idea, like an afterimage or a trace, resonated with me. Small Offerings, devoid of intense color and therefore the haphazard joviality and colorful chaos of the two previous bodies of work, depict a somber, hazy, creepier world with tones of loss and anxiety”

Monika Lin has exhibited extensively in the United states, Europe and China, and has been included in important private and public collections, among them the Weithorn Collection. This is Monika Lin’s fifth exhibition with Toomey Tourell Fine Art.