Both artist and Architect Chinese-American Maya Lin is fluidly in line with the beauty and serenity of her surroundings. When only 21 and still studying architecture at Yale University she entered a competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial against some of the largest and best known Architects of the time and won. Her concept was to create a severe open wound in the earth to symbolize the loss of so many soldiers. Despite the controversy of her being of Chinese heritage the memorial was built and stands as on of the strongest war memorials in the US today.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Maya Lin Civil Rights Memorial
Today she has her own studio in New York. Her influences and inspirations can be summed up in her own words: “My pieces are always about contradiction. I’m torn between Eastern and Western Influences, so theres the yin and the yang, the hard and the soft. For instance, I’ve always been fascinated with the attributes of glass, that it’s a solid that can look like water, that it’s never stable. People often take for granted the incredibly complex curves in the stone, in river washed pebbles. I wanted to create these volumes that almost deny mass and weight. They’re like drops of water sitting on the ground.” She is very in the moment and of the earth with her exploration of rock, wood and water. She has an inner respect for the land and the natural movement of life.
Maya Lin Systematic Landscape
Maya Lin: Boundaries
Published in 2000 her book Maya Lin: Boundaries outlines her lengthy and fluid thought process for each of her pieces and their links between sculpture and architecture. She makes you feel and perceive the environment and the passing of time. http://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Maya-Lin/dp/0684834170
Maya Lin Wave field - architectural landscape
“I work with the landscape, and I hope that the object and the land are equal partners.” www.mayalin.com
Caspian Sea sculpture
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