Sources:
https://art21.org/artist/maya-lin/
https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/maya-lin/
https://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ap_pjourneys_bio5.html
https://art21.org/artist/maya-lin/
https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/maya-lin/
https://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ap_pjourneys_bio5.html
Artist Quote: "I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me." Achievements: Lin’s Vietnam memorial design was recognized with an Honor Award as well as a Henry Bacon Memorial Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1984. The recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (1988, 2007), Lin was also honored with the National Medal of Arts, conferred by President Barack Obama in 2009, and later the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, for her significant contributions to art, architecture, and environmental activism. | About the Artist: Lin, a Chinese-American, came from a cultivated and artistic home: her father was the Dean of Fine Arts at Ohio University, and her mother is a Professor of Literature at Ohio University. Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior at Yale University, she submitted the winning design in a national competition for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, DC. About the Artwork: She was trained as an artist and architect, and her sculptures, parks, monuments, and architectural projects are linked by her ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape. Her approach to artmaking often finds its origins in science rather than art, using satellite technology and cartographic techniques. She draws inspiration for her sculpture and architecture from culturally diverse sources, including Japanese gardens, Hopewell Indian earthen mounds, and works by American earthworks artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Lin’s longstanding environmental advocacy and her fascination with maps led her to begin exploring water as a precious resource, charting birds-eye views of major bodies of water such as the Hudson, Thames, and Yangtze rivers. These wall works, drawings, and large-scale sculptures have been produced using materials including recycled silver, glass marbles, and custom-made stainless-steel pins. In 2019, Lin’s exhibition Flow, organized by the Grand Rapids Art Museum, expanded the site-specificity of her water works to Western Michigan, including The Traces Left Behind (From the Great Bear Lake to the Great Lakes) (2019) a sprawling relief made of recycled silver. |