2021
Chinese ink and pen on watercolor paper
64.57 x 51.18 in.
On loan from private collector
In Opening to the Mountains, Lin Guocheng blends classical Chinese landscape painting perspective with Western ideas of depth and structure. The intricate landscape, built from fine, undulating, and crisscrossed lines is depicted in a traditional Chinese “three distances” perspective. Yet at the same time, the mountains break out of the flat surface by escaping to occupy a three dimension cubic space created by the use of Western linear perspective. Lin treats line and perspective as more than technique, they’re tools for connection and reflection. This piece invites viewers into a layered space that explores how tradition meets modernity, East meets West.