CLOSING-Fanyu Lin: The Line That Forgot Its Name

By Chinese American Arts Council

Jun 26  |  Culture

CLOSING EXIBITION-Fanyu Lin: The Line That Forgot Its Name, Gallery 456 – SoHo Events

Exhibition Closing: June 26, 2026

Curated by: Xumeng Zhang

The Line That Forgot Its Name unfolds around the resilience of the “line” as a trace, examining how it expands as a bodily structure. For Fanyu Lin, painting has never been a simple process of image-making generated through the extension of lines across a flat surface, but rather a method of organizing perception, emotion, and spatial relationships. The line, for her, carries both the trace of writing and the bodily weight embedded within painterly gesture. Through continuous repetition, layering, and extension, this movement gradually departs from language’s original function and meaning, turning instead toward a more open formal condition.

Fanyu Lin’s practice initially emerged from art therapy. At this stage, the generation of lines functioned first and foremost as a mechanism of perception rather than a result-oriented visual production. The validity of a trace did not depend on technique, completion, or public legibility, but originated from bodily movement itself. Emotion, attention, and breath became organized through the line, allowing painting to operate as a process of mediation between the body and internal experience. This experience also informed her later and sustained engagement with “writing,” another term deeply connected to the line.

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