Li Lin Lee: Barbie Meets the Talismans
While there are abstract painters who explore the possibilities of line, it would be a mistake to say that Mondrian’s or Barnett Newman’s paintings are “about” line: their effect is to transport the viewer, partly through painterly nuances not apparent in reproductions.
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The variety of elements undercuts the authority of any particular shape. Within a single painting, lines meet a curve, or a line in one direction is paired with a line in another, or light is paired with darkness–and as I viewed the paintings I felt myself grow lighter. The series as a whole has the same effect. Contributing to the sense of dissolution are the irregularities of the color fields: Lee applied the pigment with very little binder, making the paint less glossy, and rubbed it to further roughen the surface. But it’s the delicacy of color and the gentle luminousness of these simple designs that undermine materiality.
Other paintings in Lee’s show were influenced by Polynesian religious statues, but they “wound up with this pop feeling,” he says. However, despite the show’s title (which the gallery gave it), there are no Barbies here. Most of the paintings set several simple shapes against a highly variegated field Lee produces by placing six or more colors at the top edge, then pulling them down with a spatula. Each vaguely figural shape in Girl Toys has its own streaks of color, which cause the shapes to both contrast and blend in with the background, lessening distinctions and creating a kind of harmony and unity.
Other works include rectangular cutout spaces. P (s) 0201 consists of an odd-shaped piece of wood covered with colored squares arranged in lines that recall Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie-Woogie. But these lines turning abrupt corners are set against the gallery wall, not a painted background–their support, their matrix, has vanished. The center of P0203 is cut out, forming a right-angled but highly asymmetrical figure: the square turned into a hole. Overall the painting is dark green, interrupted by smaller squares in muted colors around the open area. Carswell doesn’t necessarily favor emptiness over solidity or muted colors over bright ones; rather he denies priority to any particular version of the rectangle. There’s no link between the material and the spiritual, no hidden truth in visual forms.
