Beijing-born artist Lin Yan’s artistic practice centres on her innovative use of Xuan paper, transforming this traditional Chinese material into site-specific installations that respond to architectural spaces. Lin creates works that navigate between two and three dimensions, using layers of pleated paper, ink, and plaster moulds to capture both natural beauty and temporal traces. Her technique breaks free from traditional ink art while maintaining subtle references to Chinese landscape paintings through undulating paper formations that evoke water ripples. Lin’s artistic language is deeply influenced by her time in France, where she studied at L’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (1985-1986), following a family legacy of Franco-Chinese artistic exchange - her grandfather Pang Xunqin studied there in the 1920s, and her mother Pang Yao was among the first Central Academy of Fine Arts professors to study in France. After further studies in the US, Lin has dedicated herself to pioneering a unique artistic realm that harmoniously blends minimalism with Eastern aesthetics. In Alisan Fine Arts’ first collaboration with the artist, Lin will present never-before-shown works and create site-specific installations at Alisan Atelier in Aberdeen that strike a balance between material tranquillity and contemporary dynamism.

Lin Yan

Lin Yan was born in 1961 into a Beijing artistic family. Her grandfather, Pang Xunqin, and grandmother, Qiu Di, were the first generation of oil painting pioneers in China's modernist movement in 1920s. Pang studied at L’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in France, while Qiu studied in Japan. They were among the first group of art students under Cai Yuanpei to study abroad, where they founded Storm Society and were acclaimed as the "Father of Chinese Avant-Garde Art," introducing Bauhaus architecture and design concepts to China. Subsequently, Pang founded Central Academy of Arts and Crafts.

Lin Yan's father, Lin Gang, studied sketching and oil painting in Russia in 1950s for six years, and her mother, Pang Yao, was among the first group of professors from Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing to study in France in the 1980s, delving into abstract and modernist explorations.

Lin Yan studied in the oil painting department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1980, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1984. In 1985, she went to France to study at Atelier of Technique of Painting, L’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris for a year, and in 1989, she obtained a Master's degree in art studio at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania in the US. She currently resides in New York.

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