When I became a professional artist in 2020, I heard an industry refrain: as a woman artist, you don’t get a retrospective at a big-name museum until you’re dead.
As an emerging artist, these are the alive (and successful!) artists that inspire me today. It’s hard to categorize them as they work across wide-ranging mediums and genres. Some of them paint abstract works. Altogether they are experimental innovators in their respective fields.
I’m interested in some of the questions that drive these artists (about technology and ecology) or the investigation of forms through extensive research and prototyping.
Other artists have commented that I share a sensibility with Sarah Sze for “imploded” works in my abstract landscapes. One can only hope that this is true!
Growing up, the majority of abstract artists and works that I studied were heterosexual, male and European (e.g., Kandinsky, Turner, Monet). A painter recently told me that Western landscape influences were apparent in my abstract paintings. I love Turner’s use of light, so it’s hard for me to let go of that in my abstractions.
However, I find my approach to sculpture and installation to be heavily influenced by global artists, especially women artists of the Asian diaspora.
As I continue to work on abstract paintings, I hope their influence becomes more apparent in my works too.
A bit more about each artist and what I love about their work!
Sarah Sze
abstract paintings, sculpture and multimedia installations
When I worked on my installation, Without the stars, there would be no us, I researched Sze’s interviews about why she paints and when she chooses to do installation. She mentioned a “painterly” lens using light, which I applied to my use of shiny metallic tape in the installation.
About Sze (from Gagosian):
“Sarah Sze gleans objects and images from worlds both physical and digital, assembling them into complex multimedia works that shift scale between microscopic observation and macroscopic perspective on the infinite. A peerless bricoleur, Sze moves with a light touch across proliferating media. Her dynamic, generative body of work spans sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, video, and installation while always addressing the precarious nature of materiality and grappling with matters of entropy and temporality.
Born in Boston, Sze earned a BA from Yale University in 1991 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 1997. While still in graduate school, she challenged the very nature of sculpture, at MoMA PS1 in New York, by burrowing into the walls of the building, creating sculptural portals and crafting ecosystems that radically transformed the host architecture. A year later, for her first solo institutional exhibition, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, she presented Many a Slip (1999), an immersive installation sprawling through several rooms in which flickering projections were scattered among complex assemblages of everyday objects. This marked Sze’s first foray into video, which has since become a central medium of her installations. Citing the Russian Constructivist notion of the “kiosk” as a key inspiration, she conceived subsequent installations as portable stations for the interchange of images and the exchange of information. Sze’s work was included in the 48th Biennale di Venezia and the Carnegie International in 1999; the Whitney Biennial in 2000; and the Bienal de São Paulo in 2002. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003.”
Lee Bul
multimedia installations, performance, abstract drawings
Bul’s installation, Civitas Solis, was hugely inspirational for my installation, Without the stars, there would be no us both conceptually and visually.
Her use of pearls in her abstract paintings also influenced me to incorporate pearls in my 2024 sculptural works: To my ancestors, who make time habitable.
Her cybernetic, cyberpunk sculptures are conceptually interesting. Her “fish” exhibition at MOMA emboldened me to take more risks in my artistic practice (including salt clay, which was eaten by a mouse in my studio!).
About Bul (from Lehmann Maupin):
“Lee Bul (b. 1964, Yeongju; lives and works in Seoul, South Korea) works across a diverse range of media—from drawing, sculpture, and painting to performance, installation, and video—to examine the intricacies of shared human consciousness and the myths and folklore that accompany history. She investigates the liminal space between binaries such as the individual and the collective, and contradictory feelings such as isolation and claustrophobia. Her installations and sculptures explore universal themes including the utopian desire to achieve perfection through technological advances and the dystopic suspicions and failures that often result. Though varied in material and content, the works are united in their exploration of structural systems—from the individual body to larger architectural frameworks that encompass cities and utopian societies. For Lee Bul, humankind’s fascination with technology ultimately refers to our preoccupations with the human body and our desire to transcend flesh in pursuit of immortality. This interest often materializes in her work in the form of a cyborg—a being that is both organic and machine—the closest thing to a human that truly achieves this ideal. Lee Bul considers the cyborg a conceptual metaphor in its personification of social attitudes to technology; simultaneously a paragon and a monster.
Lee Bul received a B.F.A. in sculpture from Hongik University, Seoul, in 1987. Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized at the Gothenberg Museum in Gothenberg, Sweden (2023); Sara Hilden Museum, Tampere, Finland (2023); Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2021); Manege Central Exhibition Hall, Saint Petersburg, Russia (2020); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2019); Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2018); Martin Gropius-BauArt, Berlin, Germany (2018); Art Sonje Center, Seoul, South Korea (2016 and 2012); Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2015); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2015); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (2014); Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2013); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2012); Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France (2007); Power Plant, Toronto, Canada (2002); New Museum, New York, NY (2002); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1997). Her work has been included in important group exhibitions and biennials such as Shell and Resin: Korean Mother-of-Pearl and Lacquer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2021); Human, 7 Questions, Leeum Museum, Seoul, South Korea (2021); Minds Rising Spirits Tuning, 13th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2021); MMCA Permanent Collection 2020+, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (2020); Phantom Plane, Cyberpunk in the Year of the Future, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019); Negotiating Boundaries, Korean Culture Centre UK, London, United Kingdom (2019); Cosmologic Arrows, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden (2019); the 58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, MA (2018); Score_ Music for Everyone, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, South Korea (2017); X: Korean Art in the Nineties, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2016); The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2016); Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2015); Burning Down the House, 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2014); Prospect 1: A Biennial for New Orleans, New Orleans, LA (2008); Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War, 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007); and dAPERTutto, 48th Venice Biennale (1999).
Her work is in numerous international public and private collections, including the Amore Pacific Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Artsonje Center, Seoul, South Korea; Bernard Arnault Collection, Paris, France British Museum, London, United Kingdom; Daegu Museum of Art, Daegu, South Korea; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; M+, Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.
In 2019, Lee Bul received the Ho-Am Prize for The Arts, which is awarded to people of Korean heritage who have contributed to the enrichment of culture and arts for humankind. In 2014, she received the Noon Award at the 10th Gwangju Biennale, given to an established artist who has produced the most experimental work that embodies the theme of the biennale. In 1999, Lee Bul was awarded an honorable mention at the 48th Venice Biennale for her contribution to both the Korean Pavilion and the international exhibition curated by Harald Szeemann.”
Candice Lin
multimedia installations, media art, abstract & representational drawings
I saw Lin’s work at the Biennale and was mesmerized by their otherworldly appearance.
I’ve seen her works in person at other exhibitions and been similarly moved by the expansiveness of her installations and the concept and research-driven elements behind their speculative nature.
While I don’t work in similar mediums (e.g., ceramics), her artistic practice and experimental approaches inspire me.
About Lin (from François Ghebaly):
“Candice Lin is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installation, drawing, video, and living materials and processes, such as mold, mushrooms, bacteria, fermentation, and stains. Her work deals with the politics of representation and issues of race, gender, and sexuality through histories of colonialism and diaspora.
Lin has had recent solo exhibitions at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2024); Canal Projects, New York (2023); Spike Island, Bristol, UK (2022); the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge (2022), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021); Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China (2021); and Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand (2020). Lin’s work was included in the 59th Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams (2022), Prospect.5 Triennial Yesterday We Said Tomorrow (2022), and both the 13th and 14th Gwangju Biennales (2021, 2023). She is the recipient of the 2024 Ruth Award, the 2023 Arnoldo Pomodoro Sculpture Prize, a 2022 Gold Art Prize, and a 2019 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, among numerous other recognitions. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Walker Art Center.
Candice Lin lives and works in Los Angeles. She is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of California Los Angeles.”
Who are some artists that I should add to my list?