Artist Statement
Kejie Lin is an independent artist based in Canada. Her practice examines how individuals experience time, space, and systems through acts of observation, cultivation, and repetition. Drawing from her long-term engagement with gardens—both lived and remembered—Lin approaches the garden not as a decorative subject, but as a structured, temporal system shaped by growth, maintenance, and quiet transformation. Rather than presenting the garden as an idealized natural space, Lin treats it as a site where human intention and natural processes continuously negotiate. Seasonal change, cycles of care, and moments of decay become ways to reflect on how time is lived rather than measured. Through painting and installation, she develops slow, attentive visual languages that resist immediacy and spectacle, inviting viewers to pause and observe subtle shifts within familiar forms. Lin’s working process is grounded in repetition and accumulation. Motifs reappear across series, not as fixed symbols, but as evolving elements that register duration and lived experience. Her compositions often balance structure and openness, allowing the viewer’s perception to move between order and uncertainty. This approach mirrors the logic of the garden itself—planned yet unpredictable, controlled yet never fully stable. Across her work, Lin is interested in how personal spaces can function as models for larger systems. The garden becomes a framework through which questions of time, care, and human presence are considered without narrative instruction. By constructing spaces that emphasize attentiveness and slowness, her work offers a quiet resistance to accelerated modes of viewing and consumption, proposing observation as an active and meaningful form of engagement.
林可婕（Kejie Lin）是一位居住在加拿大的独立艺术家。她的创作关注个体如何通过观察、培育与重复的行为，体验时间、空间与系统的存在方式。她长期与花园保持着密切关系——既是现实中亲身生活的空间，也是记忆中的精神场域。在她的创作中，花园并非装饰性的自然题材，而是一种由生长、维护与静默变化所塑造的时间性结构系统。林并不将花园呈现为理想化的自然空间，而是将其视为一个人类意图与自然过程不断协商的场所。季节的更迭、持续的照料，以及衰败的瞬间，成为她思考“时间如何被体验，而非如何被测量”的方式。通过绘画与装置，她发展出一种缓慢而专注的视觉语言，拒绝即时性与视觉奇观，引导观者在熟悉的形态中停留，感知细微而持续的变化。她的创作过程建立在重复与累积之上。图像母题在不同系列中反复出现，但并非作为固定符号，而是作为记录时间延续与生活经验的变化元素。她的构图常在结构性与开放性之间取得平衡，使观者的感知在秩序与不确定性之间游移。这种方式呼应了花园自身的逻辑——被规划，却始终不可完全控制；被管理，却从不真正稳定。在整体创作中，林关注个人空间如何成为理解更大系统的模型。花园在她的作品中构成一个思考时间、照料与人类存在的框架，而非传递明确叙事的载体。通过建构强调专注与缓慢的空间，她的作品对加速的观看与消费模式提出一种安静而持续的抵抗，将观察本身视为一种积极而有意义的参与方式。
CV
Education
Tsinghua University, Academy of Arts & Design, China
Advanced Seminar in Gongbi Painting, completed 2015
Tongji University, China
Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering Management, completed 2006
Yangtze Normal University, China
Diploma in Fine Arts, completed 1991
Solo Exhibitions
2025 — A Garden of My Own, Markham Varley Art Gallery, Markham, Canada
2023 — Kejie Lin: The Mind’s Garden, Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
2024 / 2020 — Artist Project, Toronto, Canada
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 — Art Toronto, with SSEW Project, Toronto, Canada
2024 — Art Toronto, with SSEW Project, Toronto, Canada
2019 — Wisdom Trees Planted in Heart, Lin Sanzhi Art Museum; Jiangsu Grand Theatre, Nanjing, China
2018 — National Gongbi Painting Biennale, Xiamen, China
2017 — European Traveling Exhibition for Modern Artists from Jiangsu, The Hague; London; Madrid
Awards & Grants
2025 — Ontario Arts Council Travel Grant, Canada
2025 — Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance Grant, Canada
2024 — Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance Grant, Canada
2024 — Adachi Contemporary Ukiyo-e Award, First Prize, Tokyo, Japan
2018 — National Gongbi Painting Biennale, First Prize, Xiamen, China
Public Collections
Royal Ontario Museum, Canada (2025)