Victoria Lu
It was in 2008 when I was planning the Sculpture Festival at Beijing Moon River that I got to know Yan Shilin’s work for the first time. He just graduated from Hubei Institute of Fine Arts and started out his new life in Beijing. That day, I was shocked by the stunning power of realism showed in his works, a power about the situation rather than the style. He later adopted more elements and symbols in his works and gradually formed his own style. However, whatever topics he chose, there is one characteristic that never changed—vividness and the expressiveness.
In 1982, Yan was born in Changsha of Hunan Province. Before long his little brother was born. His family was in poor economical conditions all the time and his parents were not able to raise both of them at the same time. So Yan was sent to his grandparents and stayed with them until he was four. Yan’s grandpa was very serious and everyone in the family was afraid of him. He often felt out of place since it was not his own home and frightened whenever he made a mistake. The experience during this period of time had a great influence on Yan, particularly on his artistic creation.
Life didn’t change much as little Yan came back to his parents. In his eyes, his younger brother was the one living a life, a real life—enjoying happiness with all the love of his parents. But as for him, he was just an outsider. This feeling of isolation was fully expressed in his works. He survived in the little imaginary world he created. It was a salvation of his life.
Like most children who are fond of art, Yan was regarded as a naughty boy who does nothing but hanging around. The family had no spare money to afford his painting courses and his father even had to borrow money from neighbors to pay his tuition fees. Learning painting was daydreaming for him and his family. During the first summer vacation of his middle school, Yan begged his father for attending the painting class in the town while he was helping in the field. However, his father slapped him wrathfully on the face with a bunch of paddy rice. Little Lin cried all the way home and painted secretly. His father happened to see him and realized that he was really talented and finally agreed reluctantly. He heard that the top two students would be free of tuition fees, so he spared no effort to be the best. After he went to Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, he worked as assistant of the teachers and earned his tuition fees and living expenses. He no longer needed to borrow money and even sent money back home later. Lin said he actually traded physical pain for the opportunity of learning painting. He knew it didn’t come easy and therefore cherished it very much.
Yan was indomitable in his pursuit of art. He overcame all the disadvantages and more importantly he kept lifting himself to a new level. In teachers’ eyes, Yan was the most diligent students. His ambition, self-renewal and the aspiration to stand out finally fashioned his strong-minded spirit that pushed him to keep moving on. After graduation, Yan headed for Beijing alone. Then he had no more than 1,000 Yuan. However, he felt no fear but eagerness to gain success. Later he met Wang Shaojun, teacher of China Central Academy of Fine Arts, who encouraged him to work on and introduced him to an artist. He assisted the artist to convert graphic arts into sculpture. He was well paid and finally owned his first studio. Of course, it was very shabby. He put the bunk beds which somebody threw away in the corner of the studio and put his luggage on the upper bed and slept on the one below. In this way, he made a temporary bedroom with curtains. Next he bought two barrels of mud and a revolving table and then officially started his creation. He was so happy that he was finally closer to his dream.
Lin’s One Two Three exhibited in Beijing Moon River Sculpture Festival was one of his realistic works reflecting that the subtle elements in daily life were in fact flowers blooming. The expectations for the future were written on the innocent faces. One Two Three was Lin’s graduation work that ever won him the God Award of the Graduation Works in Hubei Institute of Fine Arts and the Excellent Award of the exhibition of the Outstanding Graduation Works of Chinese College Students in Beijing. Although he was not famous immediately, it paved a promising way for his success.
Sleepless Tonight was a big leap in Yan’s creation. He used “earplugs” to symbolize his isolation from the outside world and the helplessness in his childhood. The characters in his sculptures were sealed in their own world, indifferent and isolated. This was exactly the feeling Yan had when he first came to Beijing, uneasy and evasive. This series of works were shown in his 2010 solo exhibition in Line Gallery in Beijing and 2011 Future Pass Collateral Event of the 54th Venice Biennial and these two exhibitions opened a new page for his art creation.
As Yan Shilin carried out his career in Beijing successfully, his thought gradually changed from uneasiness and self isolation to meditation on how to build the castle of his own. In his new works, he employed thorns as the wall of the castle. In his work The Castle in My Heart, a pair of hard horns grows out of the boy’s head, symbolizing his robust amulet which gets stronger and stronger. In his work Where the Flowers Are Blooming, the boy in the fence of thorns looks very innocent, but he wears a hat made of wolf skin to assume the ferocity, believing that he is very powerful. However, the truth is only an imagination, let alone that thorns may hurt himself while they are used as a defense. This complicated symbol is the consistent main line of Yan’s thoughts in his creation.
Imaginary Enemy is a very weird work that is rare among his works, in which a boy is sitting on the shoulder of a masked man with horns. The boy holds the man’s horns as if he is driving him. The man is actually the little boy’s imaginary enemy. This over-confident delusion portrays that the boy tries to fight against the enemies though it’s impossible for him to win, which also reveals Yan’s feelings when he started his career in Beijing. Lord Peacock is another suspenseful work of Yan Shilin, in which a blind-folded juvenile wears a suit jacket, a bow tie and leggings. The boy imagined the sparrow-like bird on the branch in front of him as a peacock spreading its tail. The difference between the ideal and reality is also used by Yan Shilin to reveal the dissatisfaction and helplessness in our life.
Prickly Pear describes a boy that is absent-minded and even slightly puzzled, holding a pot of prickly pear. This is Yan Shilin’s daydream. He would rather that he were the prickly pear which needn’t worry about its own fate or threats from others. He believed that as long as he holds the prickly pear, he can stand any tests, despite that the prickly pear may hurt him, which once again reflects his contradiction implicitly. Teenager is a common topic of Yan Shilin’s works. In My Other Self, two identical girls place their hands on each other’s shoulders as if they were cheering for themselves. Yan Shilin said that when he feels that he is not strong enough sometimes, he will fancy cloning himself so as to have company and at the same time double his power. Then he would not fell so lonely. It actually reflects the fear of growing up lonely in his childhood.
Don Quixote into the Wonderland is the largest work in this exhibition. Yan Shilin imagines that he is a juvenile wearing a rabbit hat, riding a horse toward the harmonious and beautiful wonderland. He dreams of the distant paradise, as if every effort made previously, no matter how much hardship and suffering has been undergone, is worthwhile for the distant utopia. Yan Shilin begins his dream journey to the other side of the world. It seems that in the work of A Wayward Cloud, Yanshi Lin reached the other side and found a girl waiting for him there. The girl is peaceful and serene, with a white swan in her arms, which seems to erase all the anxieties and doubts of Yan Shilin along the way.
Although Yan Shilin’s artistry may be influenced by the fashion of the times and gradually pays attention to children’s interest and animation aesthetics, all his creation is still derived from the experience in his real life. Life is the inspiration source of his works and unites his real world and his utopia. The conflict between virtual world and reality always exists in Yan Shilin works. It’s probable that the anxiety and suspenseful context in the interpretation of his work is the greatest pleasure of Yan Shilin when he finished his creation. It’s a ritual of facing up to the anxieties and addressing them with the audience. This communication mode usually occurs in theatres. The sculptures of Yanshi Lin look more like his personal life situation growing into the collective imagination and expectations for the future by means of the theatrical ritual.
