Alice Lin’s Melancholy Drawings Evoke Storybook Illustrations

Beijing-based painter and illustrator Alice Lin creates nostalgic, whimsical works on paper. The world she develops evokes Victorian-era storybook illustrations with its lush, ornate flora as a recurring decorative motif, but the artist's imagery is far more contemplative and melancholic. Using watercolor and natural mineral pigment, she envelopes her characters in a marbled texture with wisps of gradients that seem to float though her scenes like fog. As viewers, we come upon her characters in moments of contemplation, staring with downcast eyes or obscuring their faces from our gaze.