Lin Yusi Thus I Have Heard

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP is pleased to present the solo exhibition "Thus I Have Heard" by Chinese artist Lin Yusi at both its Tokyo and Beijing spaces. The Beijing space will run the exhibition from June 28 to August 30, 2025. The Tokyo space will host the exhibition from July 5 to August 9, 2025, marking Lin Yusi's first solo show in Japan.

Lin was born in 1978 in Huilai, Guangdong, China, graduated from the Attached High School of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1998 and earned his degree from the Chinese Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2002. He is currently a full-time painter at the Guangzhou Painting Academy. Lin Yusi began practicing calligraphy and painting from an early age, deeply influenced by traditional culture. A master of the diverse techniques found in Chinese painting, such as freehand xieyi brush work, the meticulous realism of the gongbi style, and baimiao line drawing, he works with a variety of motifs, including landscapes, flowers and birds, and human figures. As a next-generation artist from the academy school, Lin has been exploring the artistic possibilities of "new ink" in his personalized visual language. His works have been exhibited and awarded in numerous exhibitions.

This exhibition, “Thus I Have Heard,” is a retrospective that seeks to trace the artist’s personal growth and creative trajectory. The title is taken from a Buddhist scripture, and means “thus have I heard,” a phrase that symbolizes Lin’s approach towards reexamining the world through his own life and art. Growing up at a time when communication technology had barely developed, Lin obtained much of his information “by ear” as a child. The “stories he heard” and legends told to him by adults became the source of his visual images, and exerted a profound influence on his creations. Lin draws on such memories to fashion invisible, fantastic narratives with delicate brushstrokes, continuing to question the essential nature of art by practicing both ancient and modern techniques with his own hands. For him, the boundary between fiction and reality is part and parcel of life, while art should exist within the context of an accumulation of daily exploration and experimentation.

The Tokyo spcae will showcase three series: Tulpa, Line Man, and Water Margin, while the Beijing space will exhibit Tulpa, Line Man, and Bad Croissant. This will also mark the first complete presentation of both the Water Margin and Bad Croissant series. The dual solo exhibitions will highlight Lin Yusi’s years of artistic approach with ink art and his distinctive artistic vision.

◆ Tulpa (imaginary friends that have been deliberately created)
This is a "new ink" series that represents Lin’s most iconic works, over two decades of his artistic practice in traditional Chinese ink medium. Layers of delicate brushstrokes and blotches come together to create natural landscapes that are fantastic yet realistic. The human figures and animals in the center of these paintings seem to be engaged in a quiet dialogue with the mountains and shimmering light in the background merge into poetic visions of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

◆ Line Man
Both Running Wildly at Night and Line Man are series of baimiao line drawings that Lin has continued to make one of every day since 2016. The imagery largely stems from his deliberately "misremembered" impressions of Chinese classical tales of the strange—blurring the lines between flawed recollection and reality. His creative inspiration draws from centuries of Chinese folklore, including In Search of the Supernatural (Jin Dynasty), Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang (Tang Dynasty), and Strange Tales from the Glow-Window (Qing Dynasty)—stories that also flourished as popular aesthetics during Japan's Edo period. Through these whimsical characters created with effortless spontaneity, the artist bridges connections with viewers. These works serve not only as records of life’s minutiae but also as his daily voyage of the mind—a ritual refining both his mastery of line and artistic resolve.

◆ Water Margin
This series is based on motifs drawn from the classical Chinese literary work The Water Margin, reproduced with Lin’s expert technique and playful spirit injecting a contemporary sense of artistic expression into traditional subjects' matter, showcasing his distinctive creative style and cultural reinterpretation.

◆ Bad Croissant
The series Bad Croissant was created in 2021-2022. The focus are the villains of the famous Chinese Classical Literature Journey to the West and the three main characters when they were still in their "bad guy" phase. The inspiration came from Peacemaker, Lin’s favorite American Superhero TV series based on the DC Comics. He researched the textual descriptions of these characters in journey to the West and created his own new set of bad guy images, hoping to reduce their hideousness and show the true lovable side of these monsters through my depiction.

Making the most of the distinctive characteristics of his materials, such as the absorbency of the xuan paper, the pliability of his brushes, and the fluidity of ink, Lin Yusi’s work deploys a diverse range of techniques and a rich, fertile imagination to create a “new ink” mode of artistic expression that transcends time and language. Even as it is rooted in tradition, his stance towards dialogue with the new world embodies certain new trends within the constantly shifting context of East Asian art.