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Image/Provided by Linda Chen 陈岳琳 Linda Chen and her works for her exhibition "'Dressscape', an Ode to 陈薛丽珠, my Mother"
These images tell the stories of my Mother and Aunties and of a way of women’s life that will hopefully pass into history. Women, traditionally and today, all over the world, stand “tall” in the keeping of their commitments, duty and family obligations. Often their dreams are sacrificed in the process.
Image/Provided by Linda Chen 陈岳琳 Linda Chen and her works for her exhibition "'Dressscape', an Ode to 陈薛丽珠, my Mother"
陈薛丽珠(Li Ju-Shueh,Chen), my Mother died in 2004. Perhaps, this is my first real chance to reflect and to fully mourn her loss. She expressed her dreams through the designing and making of beautiful clothes. I have come to understand that the making of these clothes was the way she lived her dreams. It was something she loved to do and perhaps the only aspect of her life over which she had control.
In my memory, she would finish all of her household chores and then escape to her world of fashion. She would sing while she worked. I “helped” my Mother and without realizing it, shared in the peace and contentment of making imagination real. I would sit and amuse myself beside her while she and the sewing machine hummed.
This was something we often did together, just the two of us.
Image/Provided by Linda Chen 陈岳琳 Linda Chen and her works for her exhibition "'Dressscape', an Ode to 陈薛丽珠, my Mother"
Dressmaking was a way for my Mother to stitch away loneliness.
Dressmaking was a way for my Mother to stitch together a better life.
Art making is a way to communicate with my Mother.
Image/Provided by Linda Chen 陈岳琳 Linda Chen and her works for her exhibition "'Dressscape', an Ode to 陈薛丽珠, my Mother"
In this series, I adapt her dressmaking process.
These images, stitch together the bits and pieces of all the stories my Mother and Aunties have told me about living within a traditional Taiwanese-Chinese culture of their generation, where these women had to carry a heavy burden in their hearts throughout a woeful marriage while preserving a happiness through suffering, and a sweetness through loneliness.
In these 'Dressscape' I have imitated the process of how my Mother, 陈薛丽珠, created her dress dreams.
(Did I tell you that she was beautiful and that her dresses were divine.)
Biograpy of the Artist
To Linda, creating art is a way of expressing her thoughts and feelings, mostly in relation to the coming together of her Eastern and Western worlds. Whether it is celebrating harmonies or expressing tension and conflict, Linda utilizes different artistic mediums and styles as ways of deliberating her thoughts visually. She mainly draws upon the use of negative space and loosely dynamic lines of East Asian brush paintings, and the expressive painting style from the Impressionist art movement that is rich and adventurous in colour. Her explorations result in a visual aesthetic that blends her Eastern and Western influences into one that is uniquely hers – one that reveals an insight to her own cultural identity.
陳岳琳 (Chen Yueh-Lin) or Linda Chen is a visual artist based in Toronto. She was born in Taiwan in 1961, graduated with a BA in English Literature, and worked for IBM Taiwan before immigrating to Canada in 1996. Linda has loved making art since she was a child, but never had the opportunity to pursue art as a discipline until she journeyed into a new life in a new country. While painting murals on her bathroom walls for fun, she thought, "If I can paint on walls, maybe I can paint on canvases!" So far, she is very happy about where it has taken her.
After years of practicing art on her own, Linda became a student at the Toronto School of Art in 2006 and graduated with a Fine Arts Diploma in 2010. This new learning experience opened her eyes to the art world, and allowed her to meet new friends from all types of communities with whom she shared the same passion. This was a rare and wonderful new experience to her as an immigrant, which inspired her to write a series of short articles in Chinese sharing these experiences with, and encouraging other immigrants to, reach out to their communities.
Apart from her own projects, Linda regularly participates in group and juried exhibitions and is part of an artist group called Painters 6. Her work has been exhibited at art galleries across Ontario, including the John B. Aird Gallery (Toronto), the Latcham Gallery (Stouffville), the McMichael Gallery (Kleinburg), and the Ontario Science Centre's Idea Gallery (Toronto). |
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