LI-LAN, Recent Paintings and Pastels
Essay by Joyce Brodsky: The Paintings of Li-lan
Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
April 2001
36 Pages
16 Illustrations

Available at:
Tina Keng Gallery – Taipei

In her more recent work, architectural images vie with the earlier postmarks to evoke her love of the early Renaissance and the Romanesque.  In particular, those perfectly formed perspectival spaces that resonate in silence like the courtyard in Rome: Forward Order Expired.  On the surfaces of Li-lan’s paintings images reference passage and displacement, interchanging in a soundless, non-dimensional space.  They sometimes overlap, but never clash.  Everything is paper-thin: some images are smudged; shadow forms are neatly edged.  Presence and absence co-exist on the same plane.  These oils and pastels are pictures of almost virtual places referencing the real from both a macroscopic and microscopic viewpoint.  She creates a world of anxiety that exists in a cool place so that contradictions can be contemplated and revered.  This is Li-lan’s unique offering through her paintings.

Joyce Brodsky
2001

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