Passage - in the wake of the world

Building Site series

There are large cedar trees growing outside my studio window. They are so close it is as if I could reach out and touch them. The cedars are one hundred and fifty years old. I spend a lot of time looking out and wondering how many thousands of needles there must be on a single branch.

For a number of years now, I have been painting these trees. Painting cedars is tedious; you have to contemplate the weight and angle of each needle, think about the spaces between, yet still maintaining a sense of the tree as a whole.

For the past two years there has been is a big building site going on below. The day the dig began I looked out. Between the cedar branches I could see a large yellow bulldozer digging into the earth, hauling up the mounds of vegetation and soil in preparation for the foundation of the new building. The bulldozer stopped at the foot of the cedars. Since then, the oddly colourful machinery glides to and fro between the cedar branches and has become part of my daily enquiry.

During my break time I watch the builders. I have got to know some of their names. They have to shout in order for their voices to be heard above the noise of the machinery. I often listen to music, so during the summer months when my windows are open, the music, the cement belt, the buzzing signals and the sawing and hammering all fuse together into one sort of symphonic thing, topped off here and there by the sound of a single name. I have gotten used to the builders and they to me.

Giuseppe the crane operator knocked on my door. He brought me the high wooden chair that he had made to sit on whilst waiting. He had heard from the foreman that I wanted to have it. I noticed the builders have to wait quite a bit. I also spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for things to dry, waiting to know what to do next, waiting to know if what I have done will hold up. Giuseppe mentioned that he was also a sort of an artist; that for every new building site he worked on, he designed himself a new chair to sit on. He turned to look at the cedar paintings, crouched down, and looked carefully at the details.

Later, another builder also called Giuseppe arrived. He brought some used pieces of construction wood that he thought I might like. By then the builders knew I was an artist and that artists tend to like that sort of thing. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the painting opposite and said, “That’s me”. I wrote him a dedication of thanks on one of the many pictures I had taken of him. ”. He said that perhaps people would be more interested in builders if they would see that painting.”

The foreman accepted my invitation to visit. He stepped through the door, stood still for a moment and then said, “So this is your world.” I showed him the documentation I had been gathering; photos and videos of the builders and life on the site as I had seen it, from my window, through the cedar trees. He stood there where I usually stand and looked out onto the site. He told me that this was the most complex project he had ever done. I was thinking the same thing about my own project. Turning to look at the paintings he said, “But this must also be a lot of work”.

I was wondering later that day what, in Vincenzo’s mind, art was. At some point, I would ask him.

Angela Lyn, January 2015

Building Site series

There are large cedar trees growing outside my studio window. They are so close it is as if I could reach out and touch them. The cedars are one hundred and fifty years old. I spend a lot of time looking out and wondering how many thousands of needles there must be on a single branch.

For a number of years now, I have been painting these trees. Painting cedars is tedious; you have to contemplate the weight and angle of each needle, think about the spaces between, yet still maintaining a sense of the tree as a whole.

For the past two years there has been is a big building site going on below. The day the dig began I looked out. Between the cedar branches I could see a large yellow bulldozer digging into the earth, hauling up the mounds of vegetation and soil in preparation for the foundation of the new building. The bulldozer stopped at the foot of the cedars. Since then, the oddly colourful machinery glides to and fro between the cedar branches and has become part of my daily enquiry.

During my break time I watch the builders. I have got to know some of their names. They have to shout in order for their voices to be heard above the noise of the machinery. I often listen to music, so during the summer months when my windows are open, the music, the cement belt, the buzzing signals and the sawing and hammering all fuse together into one sort of symphonic thing, topped off here and there by the sound of a single name. I have gotten used to the builders and they to me.

Giuseppe the crane operator knocked on my door. He brought me the high wooden chair that he had made to sit on whilst waiting. He had heard from the foreman that I wanted to have it. I noticed the builders have to wait quite a bit. I also spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for things to dry, waiting to know what to do next, waiting to know if what I have done will hold up. Giuseppe mentioned that he was also a sort of an artist; that for every new building site he worked on, he designed himself a new chair to sit on. He turned to look at the cedar paintings, crouched down, and looked carefully at the details.

Later, another builder also called Giuseppe arrived. He brought some used pieces of construction wood that he thought I might like. By then the builders knew I was an artist and that artists tend to like that sort of thing. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the painting opposite and said, “That’s me”. I wrote him a dedication of thanks on one of the many pictures I had taken of him. ”. He said that perhaps people would be more interested in builders if they would see that painting.”

The foreman accepted my invitation to visit. He stepped through the door, stood still for a moment and then said, “So this is your world.” I showed him the documentation I had been gathering; photos and videos of the builders and life on the site as I had seen it, from my window, through the cedar trees. He stood there where I usually stand and looked out onto the site. He told me that this was the most complex project he had ever done. I was thinking the same thing about my own project. Turning to look at the paintings he said, “But this must also be a lot of work”.

I was wondering later that day what, in Vincenzo’s mind, art was. At some point, I would ask him.

Angela Lyn, January 2015

Building Site series

There are large cedar trees growing outside my studio window. They are so close it is as if I could reach out and touch them. The cedars are one hundred and fifty years old. I spend a lot of time looking out and wondering how many thousands of needles there must be on a single branch.

For a number of years now, I have been painting these trees. Painting cedars is tedious; you have to contemplate the weight and angle of each needle, think about the spaces between, yet still maintaining a sense of the tree as a whole.

For the past two years there has been is a big building site going on below. The day the dig began I looked out. Between the cedar branches I could see a large yellow bulldozer digging into the earth, hauling up the mounds of vegetation and soil in preparation for the foundation of the new building. The bulldozer stopped at the foot of the cedars. Since then, the oddly colourful machinery glides to and fro between the cedar branches and has become part of my daily enquiry.

During my break time I watch the builders. I have got to know some of their names. They have to shout in order for their voices to be heard above the noise of the machinery. I often listen to music, so during the summer months when my windows are open, the music, the cement belt, the buzzing signals and the sawing and hammering all fuse together into one sort of symphonic thing, topped off here and there by the sound of a single name. I have gotten used to the builders and they to me.

Giuseppe the crane operator knocked on my door. He brought me the high wooden chair that he had made to sit on whilst waiting. He had heard from the foreman that I wanted to have it. I noticed the builders have to wait quite a bit. I also spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for things to dry, waiting to know what to do next, waiting to know if what I have done will hold up. Giuseppe mentioned that he was also a sort of an artist; that for every new building site he worked on, he designed himself a new chair to sit on. He turned to look at the cedar paintings, crouched down, and looked carefully at the details.

Later, another builder also called Giuseppe arrived. He brought some used pieces of construction wood that he thought I might like. By then the builders knew I was an artist and that artists tend to like that sort of thing. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the painting opposite and said, “That’s me”. I wrote him a dedication of thanks on one of the many pictures I had taken of him. ”. He said that perhaps people would be more interested in builders if they would see that painting.”

The foreman accepted my invitation to visit. He stepped through the door, stood still for a moment and then said, “So this is your world.” I showed him the documentation I had been gathering; photos and videos of the builders and life on the site as I had seen it, from my window, through the cedar trees. He stood there where I usually stand and looked out onto the site. He told me that this was the most complex project he had ever done. I was thinking the same thing about my own project. Turning to look at the paintings he said, “But this must also be a lot of work”.

I was wondering later that day what, in Vincenzo’s mind, art was. At some point, I would ask him.

Angela Lyn, January 2015

Construction series

There are large cedar trees growing outside my studio window. They are so close it is as if I could reach out and touch them. The cedars are one hundred and fifty years old. I spend a lot of time looking out and wondering how many thousands of needles there must be on a single branch.

For a number of years now, I have been painting these trees. Painting cedars is tedious; you have to contemplate the weight and angle of each needle, think about the spaces between, yet still maintaining a sense of the tree as a whole.

For the past two years there has been is a big building site going on below. The day the dig began I looked out. Between the cedar branches I could see a large yellow bulldozer digging into the earth, hauling up the mounds of vegetation and soil in preparation for the foundation of the new building. The bulldozer stopped at the foot of the cedars. Since then, the oddly colourful machinery glides to and fro between the cedar branches and has become part of my daily enquiry.

During my break time I watch the builders. I have got to know some of their names. They have to shout in order for their voices to be heard above the noise of the machinery. I often listen to music, so during the summer months when my windows are open, the music, the cement belt, the buzzing signals and the sawing and hammering all fuse together into one sort of symphonic thing, topped off here and there by the sound of a single name. I have gotten used to the builders and they to me.

Giuseppe the crane operator knocked on my door. He brought me the high wooden chair that he had made to sit on whilst waiting. He had heard from the foreman that I wanted to have it. I noticed the builders have to wait quite a bit. I also spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for things to dry, waiting to know what to do next, waiting to know if what I have done will hold up. Giuseppe mentioned that he was also a sort of an artist; that for every new building site he worked on, he designed himself a new chair to sit on. He turned to look at the cedar paintings, crouched down, and looked carefully at the details.

Later, another builder also called Giuseppe arrived. He brought some used pieces of construction wood that he thought I might like. By then the builders knew I was an artist and that artists tend to like that sort of thing. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the painting opposite and said, “That’s me”. I wrote him a dedication of thanks on one of the many pictures I had taken of him. ”. He said that perhaps people would be more interested in builders if they would see that painting.”

The foreman accepted my invitation to visit. He stepped through the door, stood still for a moment and then said, “So this is your world.” I showed him the documentation I had been gathering; photos and videos of the builders and life on the site as I had seen it, from my window, through the cedar trees. He stood there where I usually stand and looked out onto the site. He told me that this was the most complex project he had ever done. I was thinking the same thing about my own project. Turning to look at the paintings he said, “But this must also be a lot of work”.

I was wondering later that day what, in Vincenzo’s mind, art was. At some point, I would ask him.

Angela Lyn, January 2015

At once, upon entering the gallery from the street, with its myriad of city noises, you are mystified by the uncanny quietness of the paintings. You sense their presence, a low murmuring emanating from the walls.

A number of years ago, when I first came upon Angela Lyn’s paintings, I understood her paintings to be a distant echo of the romantic landscape tradition infused with a distinct modernist inflection. They were, and still are, paintings about the act of painting itself, pointing as much to the world outside, as they are invested in their own being. Angela’s paintings of the past decade bear witness to her unrelenting exploration of a uniquely painterly poetics for today, as well as signaling a genuine concern for the medium’s past and future.

What has become ever more pronounced for me with Angela’s paintings since when I first entered her studio, and what has found its clearest expression to date in these
new paintings for London, is the fact that the paintings are meant to be behold, by each other, arranged to create conversations between themselves, but most importantly behold by us, the viewers. Rooted in the pleasure of painting, touching the canvas with a brush, the images that Angela Lyn constructs, layer of thin paint upon layer of thin paint,
are modeling an attitude, a relationship. That is true for
the landscape paintings, which herald the specificity of Ticino mountains, whilst seeing a timeless abstraction in those formations, as much as it is true for those paintings which contain fragments of trees, close-ups of pearls scattered or arrangements of found objects, sharing in a playful moment of surreal theatricality.

The contact between sight and surface becomes a moment of validation of the embodied eye and the canvas and
the image upon it alike. It is a mutually reinforcing relation- ship. Reconfiguring time and space, the images accrue in depth over time, through repeated looking, and through repeated looking the viewer’s sense of being in the world is heightened. Through painting, he reconstitutes his own bodily experience.

The story of the paintings for London does not end here however. What I have called abstraction in these paintings is perhaps best characterized as a form of graphic impetus.
It is not quite writing – although the cedar branches come close – but an articulation of propriety of space, and of owning space, which is always also acutely aware of its limits.

Angela Lyn’s paintings are then occupying a liminal space, into which they quite literally draw you in, compositionally, and prepare you for the moment when the work of reconfiguration is done, at which point they will give way for a new, yet unknown, experience.

Max Koss, Chicago, May 1st 2012

(https://angelalyn.com/giving-way-more/)

There are large cedar trees growing outside my studio window. They are so close it is as if I could reach out and touch them. The cedars are one hundred and fifty years old. I spend a lot of time looking out and wondering how many thousands of needles there must be on a single branch.

For a number of years now, I have been painting these trees. Painting cedars is tedious; you have to contemplate the weight and angle of each needle, think about the spaces between, yet still maintaining a sense of the tree as a whole. 

For the past two years there has been is a big building site going on below. The day the dig began I looked out. Between the cedar branches I could see a large yellow bulldozer digging into the earth, hauling up the mounds of vegetation and soil in preparation for the foundation of the new building. The bulldozer stopped at the foot of the cedars. Since then, the oddly colourful machinery glides to and fro between the cedar branches and has become part of my daily enquiry.

During my break time I watch the builders. I have got to know some of their names. They have to shout in order for their voices to be heard above the noise of the machinery. I often listen to music, so during the summer months when my windows are open, the music, the cement belt, the buzzing signals and the sawing and hammering all fuse together into one sort of symphonic thing, topped off here and there by the sound of a single name. I have gotten used to the builders and they to me.

Giuseppe the crane operator knocked on my door. He brought me the high wooden chair that he had made to sit on whilst waiting. He had heard from the foreman that I wanted to have it. I noticed the builders have to wait quite a bit. I also spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for things to dry, waiting to know what to do next, waiting to know if what I have done will hold up. Giuseppe mentioned that he was also a sort of an artist; that for every new building site he worked on, he designed himself a new chair to sit on. He turned to look at the cedar paintings, crouched down, and looked carefully at the details.

Later, another builder also called Giuseppe arrived. He brought some used pieces of construction wood that he thought I might like. By then the builders knew I was an artist and that artists tend to like that sort of thing. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the painting opposite and said, “That’s me”. I wrote him a dedication of thanks on one of the many pictures I had taken of him. ”. He said that perhaps people would be more interested in builders if they would see that painting.”

The foreman accepted my invitation to visit. He stepped through the door, stood still for a moment and then said, “So this is your world.” I showed him the documentation I had been gathering; photos and videos of the builders and life on the site as I had seen it, from my window, through the cedar trees. He stood there where I usually stand and looked out onto the site. He told me that this was the most complex project he had ever done. I was thinking the same thing about my own project. Turning to look at the paintings he said, “But this must also be a lot of work”.

I was wondering later that day what, in Vincenzo’s mind, art was. At some point, I would ask him.

Angela Lyn, January 2015

(http://angelalyn.com/work/building-site/building-site-more/)

There are large cedar trees growing outside my studio window. They are so close it is as if I could reach out and touch them. The cedars are one hundred and fifty years old. I spend a lot of time looking out and wondering how many thousands of needles there must be on a single branch.

For a number of years now, I have been painting these trees. Painting cedars is tedious; you have to contemplate the weight and angle of each needle, think about the spaces between, yet still maintaining a sense of the tree as a whole.

For the past two years there has been is a big building site going on below. The day the dig began I looked out. Between the cedar branches I could see a large yellow bulldozer digging into the earth, hauling up the mounds of vegetation and soil in preparation for the foundation of the new building. The bulldozer stopped at the foot of the cedars. Since then, the oddly colourful machinery glides to and fro between the cedar branches and has become part of my daily enquiry.

During my break time I watch the builders. I have got to know some of their names. They have to shout in order for their voices to be heard above the noise of the machinery. I often listen to music, so during the summer months when my windows are open, the music, the cement belt, the buzzing signals and the sawing and hammering all fuse together into one sort of symphonic thing, topped off here and there by the sound of a single name. I have gotten used to the builders and they to me.

Giuseppe the crane operator knocked on my door. He brought me the high wooden chair that he had made to sit on whilst waiting. He had heard from the foreman that I wanted to have it. I noticed the builders have to wait quite a bit. I also spend a lot of time waiting; waiting for things to dry, waiting to know what to do next, waiting to know if what I have done will hold up. Giuseppe mentioned that he was also a sort of an artist; that for every new building site he worked on, he designed himself a new chair to sit on. He turned to look at the cedar paintings, crouched down, and looked carefully at the details.

Later, another builder also called Giuseppe arrived. He brought some used pieces of construction wood that he thought I might like. By then the builders knew I was an artist and that artists tend to like that sort of thing. He stood in the doorway looking straight at the painting opposite and said, “That’s me”. I wrote him a dedication of thanks on one of the many pictures I had taken of him. ”. He said that perhaps people would be more interested in builders if they would see that painting.”

The foreman accepted my invitation to visit. He stepped through the door, stood still for a moment and then said, “So this is your world.” I showed him the documentation I had been gathering; photos and videos of the builders and life on the site as I had seen it, from my window, through the cedar trees. He stood there where I usually stand and looked out onto the site. He told me that this was the most complex project he had ever done. I was thinking the same thing about my own project. Turning to look at the paintings he said, “But this must also be a lot of work”.

I was wondering later that day what, in Vincenzo’s mind, art was. At some point, I would ask him.

Angela Lyn, January 2015

(http://angelalyn.com/work/building-site/building-site-more/)

When I was born in 1955, being Anglo- Chinese was still considerably uncommon. The influences of having a Chinese father and an English mother were subtle, woven into the details of our daily life; the difference of my father’s expression whilst bending over a plate of potatoes with a knife and fork, to that of emptying a bowl of rice with his chopsticks, was clearly worlds apart.

Our house in the small village just outside Windsor, in the southwestern part of England where I grew up was called Amoy. It was named after the area in Southern China where my father was born and raised. A climbing plant with pale delicate leaves wound its way around the wooden nameplate on which the four letters were placed, diagonally from top to bottom. In springtime, despite the struggle to survive in a foreign climate, the plant produced small purple flowers. Each year the blossom was brought to our attention. We would be called to breathe in its unusual scent and once again absorb the story of how this plant flourished in the Lin Family Gardens back home. I recall the peonies my father had put great effort into cultivating in our front garden; their otherness and the somehow misplaced enthusiasm with which he showed them to the neighbors.

Letters periodically arrived at our house baring colorful Chinese stamps. I kept those depicting things such as chrysanthemums, colored birds, or painted bamboo, storing them neatly in a red silk box. Sometimes packages would be delivered. The contents, whose Chinese labels were illegible to me, were mostly things to eat. They were things that I had not seen before, things that one did not find at the local grocery; salted plums, star spice, dried miniature prawn, black mushroom, powdered pork, ginseng root, moon cakes, foreign smelling herbal medicines and teas in tall embossed canisters with pictures of dragons, mountain landscapes or floating figures. At the sight of these precious things my father seemed to transcend into another space and time. Sometimes the packages would contain things for my mother; embroidered pieces of traditional Chinese clothing, silk slippers, tasseled purses, a jade pendant, a flower shaped mother of pearl pin, brightly enameled bracelets or perhaps rings for small fingers. Still to this day I wonder if she felt they suited her. All these things, gifts from my invisible Chinese family possessed an intimate sense of belonging to which I felt included.

This slow infusion of cultural heritage laid the basis for my own sense of cultural identity; in an obscure yet profound way I felt part of me belonged to China. When I was seven, my teacher at school asked me to bring something Chinese to the geography class. Assuming to be an authority on the subject, I took a bowl and chopsticks and gave a demonstration on how to eat rice.

At the peak of the Communist revolution, my relatives fled the mainland to Taipei. Despite losses, my father always presented a forward thinking view that change in China was necessary and inevitable. In1972, seventeen years of age and Mainland China still largely inaccessible, I went to Taiwan to meet my family for the first time. A large group of relatives was awaiting my arrival, curious to meet the daughter of No. 3 son of the Third Branch. When they first saw me they were shocked by my difference: although considering me as family, they saw me not as a Chinese, but as a foreigner.

Where is my china, I asked myself?

Since those days, Mainland China has opened up. We are saturated with the China boom bringing us sounds, smells, objects and information about China: Chinese fast food, plastic Buddha heads, Chinese style furniture and an inexhaustible list of goods made in China. As people move and travel, mix and mingle, the definition of origin and cultural identity is becoming increasingly complex: I ask myself what kind of cultural dialogue and exchange is evolving within today’s frenetic pace of globalization?

From my own perspective, lasting cultural exchange is a slow process, established through shared human experience over time. The mixing of blood between cultures is perhaps the most permanent exchange of all, transcending any one source, inherent of both.

Perhaps it is herein that my china lies: in the mingled roots of two differing cultures, wherein the translation from one to the other, back and forth, becomes in itself a language of its own.

Whilst painting I ask myself, does my china have anything to do with the real China and what is the real China? The ambiguous zone of cultural exchange and shifting identities evokes questions. I have no answers as such, but through my work as a painter, hope to visualize a process that once merely personal, has now become a common issue.

Angela Lyn 2008