by Li Shuqiao

Thread can change the value of objects, turn useful into useless and turn useless into useful. Thread can gather and smash strength, reflect gender, change identity. Thread is a process you are experiencing.

This is Lin Tianmiao's interpretation of thread, as well as her own works. Lin Tianmiao's use of thread as a medium originates from her visual memories of her own childhood. After seven or eight years of American life then an homecoming, Lin's mental state was in a complex transforming place that before she had time to handle her feelings there was an urgent need to express them, so she searched her mind for a visual experience from her childhood: "Lots of white clews, my mother often used threads to make clothes, quilts..."."Thread" thus becomes part of the context for Lin Tianmiao's artistic creations. In addition, "thread" as depicted Lin Tianmiao's artistic language lies not only in a memory, but is also reflected in her aesthetic orientation, individual characteristics and social conditions.

Lin Tianmiao's early works are composed like the process of a thread's continuous intertwining. Remembering a houseful of clews in her childhood, she was surprised at the texture and strength of them and found a kind of visual experience which could be transferred between the thread and needle. From this, she started art experiments using the contrast and adaptation of art materials. What the "Diffused Entanglement" uses is only needles and threads. Lin Tianmiao winds cotton threads into a continuous series of loops which makes more than 20,000 small thread balls. With the increasing of thread balls, space seems to be slowly eroded by them thus forming a strong visual impact. In contrast, when the opposing factors of the work - the "needles" are displayed in a compact mass, their original sharp sense disappears. This transference between soft and hard gradually emerges in the manual process along with the subtle psychological changes. This is what life gives us: life is always full of unexpected changing levels. This is Lin Tianmiao's request for a "thread", she tries to "pull" lost memories back to present life then demonstrate that the previous life offers directions for the present life.

Following the same idea is "Bound and Unbound,” which means restricting and restricted. In this work, the meaning of "thread" is to not experience the past anymore, this mark which symbolizes family life is used by Lin Tianmiao to change her own life. Therefore, the meaning of "cotton thread" reaches further "Bound and being bound", "restricting and restricted thus "exactly portraying her early contrary mental state of finding the way of life after returning home”.

After a contradictory struggle, Lin's thought gradually becomes clearer and makes her pay more attention to analyzing the relationship between her mind-set and the outside world. The extension of thought leads Lin Tianmiao's "thread" to the stage of unwinding and weaving. In her work "Sewing", she seems to organize life, including her understanding of religion and knowledge of society. Thus, the "thread" in her work has unwittingly expanded from a bound state to stretching.

Representing an individual's "embarrassment and frustration" is the largest theme in the first stage of the works of Lin Tianmiao. In her second stage is "GO", the theme is deepened further because the awkward feelings in "GO" are no longer her own but extends to other people.

If Lin Tianmiao's second stage is still entangled with the repetitive process of a thread's "bound" and "stretching", then in her third stage, her "thread" has been completely unraveled. What she is concerned with is not only "material language" or "psychological structure", but also the spreading out capabilities like "weaving webs with threads" to think many ideas in the human ecosystem are within her ability such as women's responsibilities in birth and parenting in "OVUM"; ideals' transition to reality in the "HIGH"; believes of nationality under globalization, in "BOY AND GIRL". Lin Tianmiao treats such staggering themes only with "thread ".What is different is that this time "thread" becomes a concept or thought-provoking sign. Therefore, starting from the "thread', Lin Tianmiao sees the feature "marginality". "Thread" makes her feel the boundaries between things but if people break them would things keep their original appearance? Where does the boundary between men and women lie? What kind of mental boundary is there between the elderly and the young? Where does the boundary between birth and death lie? Lin Tianmiao collects these issues together in the work, "Not Zero".

"Non Zero" has no meaning which is its real meaning. "Zero" is the middle value of positive and negative, a watershed, "non-positive and non-negative" with the "non" in front, it writes off the "watershed", that is, nothing. In fact, there doesn't exist any predetermined boundaries in life, life is just life.

In Lin Tianmiao's thread theme, thread starts from "intertwining, wrapping" to "unwinding and weaving" and finally to "extending, opening" with power gradually expanding. Her understanding of art and life gradually deepen, meanwhile the vitality of the "thread language" has been opened. The expansion process of "thread" is also the process of Lin Tianmiao's constant depiction of her inner world. Her reflections on life and art are all released through the language of "thread" which is a warm feeling. At this point, Lin Tianmiao is not seen in art circles as a "female" artist, but is concerned about art and life as a mature artist who owns a unique language of expression.

The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not represent those of CAFA ART INFO.