Bio
Hai-Wen Lin is a Chicago-based Taiwanese-American artist from northern California whose work explores constructions of the body and its relation to the surrounding environment. Skilled in the craft of origami since childhood, Lin has published numerous original origami diagrams and has taught folding workshops at UC Berkeley and MIT. Their art practice has since expanded, with painted, sewn, and sculptural works exhibited at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Mosesian Center for the Arts. They have performed at the Chicago Cultural Center and MU Gallery. Their artist books and zines have sold at the Boston Art Book Fair and have received recognition from the New England Book Builders, AIGA, and Design Observer. Lin received a B.A. from UC Davis in Design and Psychology and is a M.Des Candidate in Fashion, Body and Garment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They are a recipient of SAIC’s New Artist Society Scholarship and Ox-Bow’s Leroy Neiman Fellowship.
Friends
in collaboration, in admiration
Artist Statement
This is a practice that walks the motions of daily life and invites the company of naturally occurring phenomena. Cooking, eating, observing, organizing, measuring, reading, avoiding reading, making books for others to read, dressing, walking, thinking, waiting, flying. It is an embodiment of being present in the world around me and offering the lightest of touches. Situated at the intersections of art, craft, and design, I step fluidly through garments, photographs, performance, sound, and printed ephemera. Queerness is a lens through which I both transform and free, the fixed, the historical, and the known. Kites, wooden frames, and sculptures derived from patternmaking techniques become metaphors for my body's attempts to exist freely in tandem with the world around it. Daoist principles of balance position my feet. The winds guide my hands. Sounds orient my body. And so I continue to move through the choreography of art and life.
Links / Resources
observing, reading, listening, giving attention,