Artist
Maya Lin
Via New York, NY, USA
Maya Lin’s highly acclaimed work encompasses large-scale environmental installations, intimate studio artworks, architectural works and memorials. Her artwork interprets the world through a 21st century lens, utilizing technological methods to study and visualize the natural environment. Through sculpture and drawing, Lin merges rational order with notions of beauty and the transcendental. Blurring the boundaries between two- and three-dimensional space, Lin sets up a systematic ordering of the landscape tied to history, time, science and language.
Lin’s work exudes a profound respect and love for the natural environment. Her interest in landscape has led to works influenced by topographies and geographic phenomena, finding inspiration from rock formations, ice floes, water patterns, solar eclipses, and aerial views of the earth. Lin’s work asks the viewer to reconsider nature and the environment at a time when it is crucial to do so. A committed environmentalist, she is working on her last memorial, What is Missing?, a multi-sited artwork that raises awareness about the current crisis surrounding biodiversity and habitat loss. Her work has been in solo and group shows throughout the United States and abroad, and recently completed new work for two exhibitions at the Pace Gallery in London and New York.
She has been profiled in Time, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art in America and other publications. The 1996 documentary about her work, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Lin has served as an advisor on sustainable energy use, and as a Board Member of the National Resources Defense Council. In 2009, Maya Lin was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.
