“Through My Brush and Pencil”

25th August – 21st September 2021

Westminster Reference Library, 35 St Martin’s Street, London WC2H 7HP

My artistic journey
My interest in the creative arts is something that seems to run through my entire family, budding first with my exceptionally talented grandmother and mother. I have five sisters and she sought to teach each of us a set of skills: Singing, sewing, painting etc. It was much like ‘Little Women’ if it were set in communist China.                 
I took these skills to an art studio in Chengdu, my home city, and began to practice as an artist in painting and sculpting.
In 1992, I moved to the UK to improve my already flourishing English language in preparation for studying at the London Guildhall University where I  gained an MA in ‘Applied Art and Visual Culture’ in 1996.
Whilst living in Scotland, I joined a camera club to discover a whole new passion for photography. I went on to win several regional and national awards. Even now, I still strive to achieve my dream of being a portrait artist much like my idol, John Singer Sargent.
 

Life in Sichuan China
My culture and roots lie in Chengdu, China and although that culture is changing rapidly with the advance of modern technology, I still think fondly of the almost primitive lifestyle that I used to have as a child.   
However, traditional ways of life are disappearing as historic buildings, which used to stand in old and winding streets, are being torn down to be replaced by contemporary blocks of concrete. 
Chengdu, my former hometown, is over 2,300 years old and yet there are hardly any ancient landmarks left anymore, not even one old chimney. But if you travel to the outskirts of the bustling city, it is a completely different story. We are a long way from time-travel but I think this is as close as you can get: rural villages, rice fields and diligent farmers live just a road away.
The pace of life is slower and it is here that the famously tiled buildings are familiar to my early life. On my travels through the countryside, I sketch everything that caught my nostalgic eye and even so, my pencil has traced only a very small figment of my memories, culture and traditions. 
To record lives, preserve human history, tell stories and pass on traditions through the form of the visual image is the mission of an Artist! 

   
To survive is victory – My father’s memoir

Two years ago, I finished translating and compiling my father’s (Lin Xiangbei) memoir: ‘To survive is victory’. This was a project that I was determined to see through to the end as it told the incredible story of his life and the lengths he went through to survive. He was born in 1917 and his life has spanned – and continues to – feudal society, foreign aggression, civil war, the cultural revolution and the advent of modern China. 
The book was published in September 2019 and can be bought online or in bookstores.
 
TO Survive  is VICTORY
‘In those days we dedicated our whole lives to The Party. We put it first, before anything else, whether that was family, love, or even life itself.   I will tell you a fact about the path my life has taken – to survive is victory!’
Lin Xiangbei
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