Yi-Ling, Lai

Yi Ling Lai is a Taiwanese artist born in Tainan, currently living and working in London. Yi Ling graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts with a BA in 2019 and followed with an MA in Fine Art at Kingston University in 2021. Drawing on both Eastern and Western traditions, Yi Ling has developed her artistic practice by using traditional techniques of Chinese calligraphy and combining them with contemporary painting and drawing to explore ideas, systems, and experiences of languages and their limits.

Yi Ling's practice tests both the restrictions and possibilities of traditional Chinese calligraphy; by pushing the boundaries of its use, she explores themes of desire, ambivalence, and obsession— subjects typically considered impossible to express in traditional calligraphy. The use of lines in her works is diaristic and abstract, descriptive and opaque, creating unique rhythms across time and space. Despite painting on 2D surfaces such as paper, canvas, and walls, her drawings seem to burst from the surface. Almost as if wanting to extend their meaning, she opens the viewing experience to all audiences, regardless of their mother tongue.