Acrylic on canvas

110.5 × 73 cm. 43 1/2 × 28 3/4 in.

Signed in Pinyin and dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Soka Art Gallery, Taipei
Private Collection, Asia

Wonderment under the Starry Night

Lin Baoling's Poem of the Night

Born in Taiwan, Lin Baoling started to learn to paint at a young age. He graduated from LaSalle College of Art in Singapore in 2006 and then enrolled in the Fine Arts Department of National Taiwan Normal University to study ink painting, wandering freely among different medium such as oil painting, ink painting and sculpture. He was granted the Asian Artist Award by the Vermont Art Center in 2010. His works have been collected by the Art Bank of the Taiwan Ministry of Culture, Gallery of the Amerasia Bank, Singapore Telecom Company, and Cuiheng Art Gallery in Zhongshan; he has hold solo exhibitions in Taipei, New York and Singapore. He is fond of taking inspirations from the night city scenes, demonstrating the view of city with robust light and shadows in his paintings. He has launched the A Little Guy without a Name series since 2006, where the little protagonist with a big backpack starts his journey in the paintings. Sky Lantern II (Lot 27)and Winter Night Hike II (Lot 28) presented this time are masterpieces of Lin Baoling's night scene series.

Dance with the Light; Soar in the Wind
In Sky Lantern II, the protagonist, a little guy, comes over the mountains, holding a hot air balloon under the blue-purplish starry night with one hand, reaching for the ground with the other hand. The heart-shaped lantern is warm and the traces of stitches on it reveal a sense of time and the need to heal. The vibrant flowers on the ground, glowing like fireflies, bloom in the dark night with radiance, as if they were welcoming the return of the protagonist. Once again, Lin Baoling tells us a story about healing and hope in his most well know subject of the night.

A Solitary Snowy Night; Moon over the Mountain
In Winter Night Hike II, the little guy is walking alone in the boundless snowy mountains. He carries a backpack and the night light on his helmet illuminates the dark road ahead. Although a work of western medium, this piece reveals the artist's ink painting skills in the layout and brushwork, especially the texture and textile quality of the mountains in the background, heavy ridges staggered, varied in density yet full of intensity. Although composed vertically and in the scattered perspective, this piece is immersed in the atmosphere of traditional Chinese landscape painting. Through a combination of cartoon characters and traditional composition, Lin Baoling brings new vitality to the traditional solitary aura.

Price estimate:
HKD: 28,000 – 58,000
USD: 3,600 – 7,500

Auction Result:
HKD: 103,840