angela lyn floating gardens
28 November 2017 – 31 January 2018 Cortesi Gallery London, 41&43 Maddox Street, W1S 2PD
PRESS RELEASE Angela Lyn floating gardens opening: 1 March, 6pm - 8.30pm performance: 7pm 2 March - 10 May 2018 Cortesi Gallery, 41&43 Maddox Street, London W1S 2PD The exhibition includes a catalogue with an introduction by Dr John Tancock. Cortesi Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition in London dedicated to Angela Lyn. The title “floating gardens” refers to the deeper inner meaning of the project. As the artist says, “I see floating gardens not only reflecting my observations of nature but also as a metaphor for our human existence within the great unknown”. Through the playful yet cohesive mixture of subject matter explored in her subtle oil paintings of landscapes, branches of cedar trees, insects, the bodhisattva Guan-Yin, scattered pearls, and her bronze sculptures including a giant rice bowl, large wooden chopsticks and a miniature installation of a garden tea party, Angela Lyn invites the viewer to engage. Like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, that may have been entirely mythical, Angela Lyn’s floating gardens exist only in her imagination. To gain a deeper insight into the exhibition, the viewer should be aware of the duality to which Angela Lyn frequently refers in discussions of her life and work. The ambiguity relating in particular to her Anglo-Chinese origins explains much of the appeal of the paintings and the carefully considered manner in which they are installed in the gallery. The artist was born in England to a Chinese father, with ties to Taiwan, and to an English mother. For the first seventeen years of her life she received a traditional English education which was followed by her first trip to Taipei to meet her extended family. This meeting had a profound effect on her, as she said, “there was something to be completed, not expected of me directly but carried within me, silently in my blood stream: to return to the homeland…it was the ‘70s. To me it seemed my family thought an alien had arrived. I was a floating garden.” In 2008, she made her first visit to the Lin Family Mansion and Garden in Banqiao District, New Taipei City, one of the Four Great Gardens of Taiwan. It seemed to explain many things to her, the painting of a monkey she grew up with, Chinese slippers that a relative gave to her, and the red Chinese carpet upon which her father used to lie Saturday mornings following scores of his favourite symphonies. It is no wonder that this material rose to the surface of her memory and became the subject matter of her paintings and sculptures. It is not only the significance of family dynamics and history that impact Angela Lyn’s work, but also the international artistic movement to which she has been exposed.
She refers to her observations of nature as a “search for common denominators in a complex world: images that connect on an essentially human level regardless of one’s origin. Places of visual respite to which one might return over time, furthering a sense of relationship with what one sees”. A momentous event in the direction her art was to take was in 1998, in the discovery of her studio overlooking Lake Lugano. It is there she began to develop a particular approach to painting that has reached fulfilment in her recent work. Angela Lyn paints what she sees depicting the presence of things without an obvious narrative. As the painter suggests: “a painting, is a magical means to bring together the ambiguous aspects of how one perceives reality.” The view from the windows of her studio in Lugano looks onto several magnificent cedar trees that have become a kind of visual ground bass to her exploration of other thematic material in her paintings. The cedar tree continues to be a recurrent theme in her work. “In a time where we seem to be constantly short of time, I am drawn by the time it takes to paint these trees: every needle has to be found, lived and loved into place. Furthermore, I am intrigued by the wealth of attributes associated with cedar trees: incorruptibility, longevity, healing and solitude, recognised not only in Europe and the Middle East but also in Asia.” The works on show equally reflect the artist’s attention to the “floating gardens of memory and imagination, the interior response to things that float in one’s mind. Bring it to a level of presence and reality, perhaps to open the viewer’s sensibility to his or her own floating gardens.” From Angela Lyn’s carefully rendered depictions of things that she sees and handles on a daily basis there emerges a self-portrait but of her mind rather than her appearance. Angela Lyn (b. 1955), was born in Windsor, England to a Chinese father and an English mother. She studied at Southampton College of Art, Byam Shaw now part of Central St Martins, London, and in the Painting Master Class at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland. Since 1994, having lived in the UK, the US and Asia, Angela resides and works in Lugano, Switzerland. Primarily a painter, Angela focuses on traditional media: oil painting, drawing and bronze sculpture, investigating their resonance in a world dominated by electronic media, technology and an ever-faster production of the new. Angela has exhibited extensively throughout her career, both in Switzerland and most recently in Taipei exploring cultural identity and the significance of origin in a globalizing world. Angela Lyn’s response as an artist reflects a unique synthesis of both eastern and western culture. Her works are found internationally in numerous private, corporate and museum collections. John L. Tancock was born in London and was educated at Downing College, Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute, University of London. From 1967 to 1972 he was Associate Curator in the department of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Art and Curator of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art. He received his Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute for “The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin” in 1977. From 1972 to 2008 he was employed by Sotheby’s in New York, as Director of Contemporary Art from 1972 to 1977, Director of the department of Impressionist and Modern Painting from 1977 to 1993, President of Sotheby’s Japan from 1993 to 1995 and in 2005-2006. Tancock is presently advisor to Chambers Fine Art, New York and Beijing, and a freelance curator. Since 2008 he has been actively involved in the development of contemporary Chinese art.
I like the thought of inner realities as being gardens gardens are places to linger imagine dream places of human measure intimate shaped by desire yet it remains untended gardens turn quickly wild there along a fine edge the unknown life flowers
In the morning, I usually go to the gym. I watch the news whilst on the treadmill. Later when painting things sink in, bits of information anchoring between the cedar needles or on the wings of a wasp. It takes time to paint cedars; each needle has to be seen, lived, loved into place. It is hard to perceive, that in the very same moment, there are people dying from hunger, people fleeing, people barely able to survive. I find myself overwhelmed with the desire to paint something possibly beautiful. Something carefully done. This morning, I heard the wildfires in California have spread. Looking on to the cedars outside my window, it is hard to imagine the thousands of trees going up in flames at once. My kids live in that region. Schools were closed for a few days because of bad air. I have been painting insects. I read that the dragonfly, in almost every part of the world, symbolizes change, awareness. I ask myself, how does one deal with the world beyond one’s own sphere? How does one respond? Yesterday my porcelain Guanyin fell from the ladder where I had placed her to examine her at eye level. To my relief, she did not break. I dreamt that we sat together. You, me, and Guanyin. Drinking tea from small heavy teacups, barefoot at a wooden table beneath the hanging cedars, someone singing. A floating garden.
container I + II, 2015 oil on canvas 180x55 cm each
cedaring V, 2015 oil on canvas 200x125 cm
here and beyond, 2017 oil on canvas 140x200 cm
place to be, 2016 oil on canvas 130x130 cm
in the midst of it all, 2017 oil on canvas 200x200 cm
in between, 2017 oil on canvas 140x200 cm
towards change, 2017 oil on canvas 140x200 cm
break of day, 2017 oil on canvas 140x140 cm
from here on out I + II, 2016 oil on canvas 195x65 cm each
wayfinders III + IV, 2016 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm each
foundling, 2016 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm
blue monkey, 2017 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm
nightwalk, 2016 oil on canvas 190x110 cm
through the deep blue, 2017 oil on canvas 38x38 cm
quan yin in my garden, 2017 oil on canvas 65x195 cm
her trails of empathy, 2017 oil on canvas 200x110 cm
lost and found I+II+III, 2017 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm each
from a family garden I+II, 2016 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm each
dragonfly I, 2017 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm
dragonfly II, 2017 oil on canvas 42x25 cm
orchid and wasp, 2017 oil on canvas 42x25 cm each
belongings, 2016 oil on canvas 125x80 cm
treasure, 2017 oil on canvas 32.5x32.5 cm
the hour of counting, 2012 oil on canvas 23x33 cm
rice bowl and chopsticks, 2009 bronze/wood bowl 90 cm diameter; chopsticks 200 cm
anchor, 2017 bronze
heavy slippers I + embroidered stool, 2017 painted bronze 14x6 cm each; stool diameter 32 cm; h 17 cm
path, 2017 bronze 26x12 cm each
heavy slippers II, 2017 painted bronze 9x30x10 cm each
stools I+II+III, 2017 wood, embroidered textile 23 x 33 x 12 cm; 30 cm diameter; 25 x 33x 12 cm
heavy teacups, 2017 painted bronze diameter 12 cm each
tea party, 2017 painted bronze/wood/textile box with tree, book, cups and stools
Cedrus deodara the deodar cedar, Himalayan cedar or deodar, is a species of cedar native to the western Himalayas. It has a conic crown with level branches and drooping branchlets. The leaves are needle-like, mostly 2.5-5 cm long, borne singly on long shoots, and is dense clusters of 20–30 on short shoots; they vary from bright green to glaucous blue-green in color. It is worshiped as a divine tree. They say that people with respiratory problems should sit under a Deodar tree in the early morning. Floating gardens Chinampas, sometimes referred to as “floating gardens” are artificial islands that were created by interweaving reeds with stakes beneath the lake’s surface, creating underwater fences. A buildup of soil and aquatic vegetation would be piled into these “fences” until the top layer of soil was visible on the water’s surface. Guanyln is an east Asian bodhisattva associated with compassion by Mahayana Buddhists. The Chinese name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, meaning “Perceives the Sounds of the World”. The original Sanskrit world is “karuna”. While the Oxford dictionary describes compassion as pity bordering on the merciful, karuna is our ability to relate to another in so intense a measure that the plight of the other affects us as if it had been out own. Dragonfly (flower flies and hover flies) are capable of astounding feats, including moving forward, backward, sideways and up and down. Footwear In some cultures, people remove their shoes before entering a home. Bare feet are also seen as a sign of humility and respect, and adherents of many religions worship or mourn while barefoot. Some religious communities explicitly require people to remove shoes before they enter holy buildings. Gardens a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. Tea party A tea party is a formal, ritualized gathering for the small meal called afternoon tea, often characterized by the use of prestige utensils, such as porcelain, bone china or silver. The table id made to look its prettiest, with cloth napkins and matching cups and plates. (Excerpts from Wikipedia, 2018)