13 Portraits of Lin Dai
16th February – 15th May 2006
“During the 50’s and 60’s Lin Dai was the most famous movie star in Hong Kong, Although she had money and fame, she became unhappy and tragically committed suicide when she was thirty. She has become a legend and was a cultural icon in her time, much like Marilyn Monroe was in the west.
When I first saw Lin Dai’s photo, I was shocked and attracted by her special beauty, especially her eyebrow’s majestic shape. I felt that her dramatic make up, didn’t cover her nature, on the contrary it made her more pure, like spring water. Her style of makeup reflected the times she lived in, for example her high wig and vibrant eye shadow.
I have been collecting photos of Lin Dai for ages, and I selected 13 of them to paint, each represents her in a different stage of her life. I wanted to show her as the strong-minded individual she was so I cropped the images to focus on the face, I believe this allows people to make a strong connection with her.
I am fascinated by the challenge of using photographic imagery in novel ways. I paint Lin Dai by re-interpreting photographic source material, In this age of easily accessible and freely available photographic imagery, I understood that it was appropriate to use this type of imagery to relate my work to popular culture, as Lin Dai related to, and embodied the pop culture of her time. I use my work to explore the ambiguity inherent in relationships between photography, reality and painted representations. I am also interested in how the audience responds to this facet of my practice.”
