Beaux Arts de Paris,
June 2024, Paris
Jinyong Lian (born in Shenzhen, China) is a visual artist, independent curator, and editor currently residing in Paris. In her photographic practice, she employs various roles and constructed scenes as mediums to explore psychological representations and their uncertainties, drawing inspiration from personal experiences and fictional worlds. Her signature approach includes creating cinematic works and metaphors that evoke Freud's concept of the "uncanny," challenging traditional paradigms of everyday life and female identity.
Through her lens, Lian captures intimate yet oppressive scenes, where the bodies and movements of her characters often appear squeezed, compressed, or fragmented by the frame. This display of oppression reflects her experiences as an Asian woman navigating contemporary alienation across different cultures. Her personal journey profoundly shapes her perspective on cultural displacement and social estrangement.
Simultaneously, Hegel's discourse on subjectivity has significantly influenced her work, particularly in exploring how to advance concepts such as Hannah Arendt's notion of the "banality of evil" within new social contexts.
Lian's graduation exhibition at Beaux Arts de Paris is titled "Trust Me," featuring a series of meticulously arranged portraits of Asian women that dramatically express the crises of female confidence and mental health. Confronted with the institutional violence that permeates contemporary life, the artist likens herself to the child in the classic fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes," who dares to reveal the truth. "Trust Me" serves as a powerful call for individuals to reclaim their subjectivity and as a confident declaration to initiate dialogue with the broader community in these precarious contemporary times.
