
Yi Ling Lai 賴 倚翎
(Lives and works in London)
As an international visual artist, Ling aspires to invoke interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogues in her works.
Yi Ling Lai ( b.1997) lives and works in London and Taiwan. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Calligraphy Art and Chinese Painting at the National Taiwan University of Art in 2019 and a Postgraduate Degree in MFA fine art at Kingston University in 2021. Drawing on both eastern and western traditions, Ling has developed her artistic practice of Chinese calligraphy, paintings and drawings. She combines these traditions to explore ideas, systems and experiences of languages and its limits. Her practice tests both the restrictions and possibilities of traditional Chinese calligraphy to explore themes of desire, ambivalence and obsession; subjects that are typically considered impossible to express in traditional calligraphy.
She explores these subjects using simplified traditional Chinese calligraphy characters and a repetitive mark making techniques. Without excessive sketches or references, the outcomes are authentically pure. However, she still considers semi-cursive script as a necessary element to present her style in painting, bringing language to another level through transformation and integration.
The use of line in Ling’s works is at once diaristic and abstract, descriptive and opaque, creating unique rhythms across time and space. The relationship between each line presents a dialogue, which gradually becomes visible though impressions of thoughts, interacting through reduction and amplification.

(For further inquiry into the artist statement, latest CV, collaborations and presses)
Education
Exhibition
Awards
Residency
Publications
Special
Event
(Curriculum Vitae)
Kingston Univeristy / London, UK
MFA, Fine Art
2019 – 2021
National Taiwan Univeristy of Arts / Banqiao, Taiwan
BFA, Chinese painting and Calligrahy Arts
2015 – 2019
2022, LSE Public Art Programme, Group Exhibition, LSE Marshall Building, London, UK
2022, Not My Beautiful House Open Call, Group Exhibition, London, UK
2022, Circles in Circle, Group Exhibition, OPEN Ealing, London, UK
2021, Arts Noelle, Group Exhibition, Gallery Oui, London, UK
2021, LONDON GRADS NOW 21, Group Exhibition, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2021, 10 ARTISTES, Group Exhibition, St Clar, France
2021, KSA show 2021, Online Showcase, London, UK
2021, Kingston MFA Fine Art Degree Show, London, UK
2021, Distanced Domestic, Group Exhibition, London, UK
2021, The Visitor, Online Degree Show, London, UK
2021, Translation, Solo Exhibition, Swan Studio, London, UK
2019, Heterogeneity, Degree Show, National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan
2019, Rotary Club of Panchiao Art Prize ‘Extraordinary Artworks’, Group Show, Shi Xi gallery, Taiwan
2018, NTUA teachers and students’ joint exhibition, Group Exhibition, Shi Xi gallery, Banqiao, Taiwan
2018, Some Flowers, Group Exhibition, Taipei, Taiwan
2018, National Art Exhibition, Group Exhibition, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan
2018, Dot, Photography Degree Show, Banqiao, Taiwan
2018, Time, Degree Show, Bopiliao Historic Block, Banqiao, Taiwan
Featured in Saatchi Art Catalog
Online Platform, Saatchi Art, 2022
2022 Rising Star, Saatchi Art
Online Platform, Saatchi Art, 2022
Shortlisted for New Contemporaries 2021
London, UK, 2021
Art Prize ‘Extraordinary Artworks’ Rotary Club of Panchiao
Taiwan, 2019
Honorable Mention Award / Seal Carving
National Taiwan University of Arts , Taiwan, 2018
Honorable Mention Award / Ink Painting
National Taiwan University of Arts , Taiwan, 2018
Honorable Mention Award / Calligraphy
National Taiwan University of Arts , Taiwan, 2018
Special selected works award / Ink Painting
National Art Exhibition, Taiwan, 2018
First place / Landscape Sketch
Tamkang Sketch competition, Taiwan, 2017
First place / Printmaking
National Student Art Competition, Tainan, 2013