Michael Lin & Heidi Voet : doublespeak

BANK is proud to present Michael Lin & Heidi Voet: doublespeak opening on 2 April. This presentation celebrates a decade of this artist couples' working in tandem, yet independently, as well as Voet and Lin's continued shared interest in cultural appropriation, semiotics and colorful social engagement.

Lin's practice conflates painting with architecture often through his signature cultural semiotics and floral pattern motifs. Here the legacy of global surf culture and Polynesian tropics are examined in the form of Hawaiian shirt patterns which have been meticulously hand painted onto wooden panels. Lin's interest is in complicating an already complex mixture of cultures, whereby this quintessential Hawaiian garment, popularized worldwide, is actually derived from Japanese prints.

Michael Lin's works have been exhibited in major institutions and international Biennials around the world including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto（2020）and Jumex Museum, Mexico City(2020), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei 2019, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2017, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila 2016 etc. His latest commissioned work will be present on May 2022 at a Museum , New York.

Lin's paintings act to frame Voet's newest body of sculptural works Come Play a Game With Us... .Here the artist has plied the web for hacked personal data that she then uses as a basis for sculptural bust portraits. Original, vintage, ceramic vases sourced online are recreated by the artist and then filled with sports balls that have been cast in concrete. The hair-styles of her data victims are then meticulously replicated in wigs and stacked atop the balls. The vase and balls, once empty of content, are now surrogates for the human body and at the same time cultural artifacts. The seemingly unrelated objects are homogenized by the fact that they are all proxies for the real thing. Placed in a multi-colored cubicle, the objects true identities are obscured much like the game of data hacking. Voet presents us with an associative reminder of how cultural artifacts are distorted in the age where everything, including identity is an online commodity.

With a humorous and playful approach Heidi Voet builds layered images which expose the properties of today's material culture, while challenging fixed systems of power embedded within. Heidi Voet had recent solo exhibitions in Project Fulfill Art Space Taipei (2020); Sint-Lukas gallery Brussels (2018) etc. She participated in group exhibitions as Beaufort21 Triennale (B, 2021); Unfolding: Fabric of our life, CHAT Center for Heritage, Art and Textile Hong Kong (HK, 2019); Why not ask again? 11th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (CN, 2016).