As an artist, Minglin He has made remarkable achievements through her delicate and sensitive perceptions, cross-cultural perspectives, and in-depth explorations of memory and desire. Her series of artworks ‘Tiles As Flowing Memories Shore’ has been widely featured in art exhibitions worldwide in the past two years. Minglin’s works not only demonstrate the profound aesthetic enjoyment of art but also show that art can be like a blanket that warms and soothes the human soul and touches people’s deepest emotions and memories.
For the artist Minglin, the tiles found in old houses are the most striking visual graphics in the domestic space. The various tiles enable each domestic space to evoke a distinct sensibility, each imbued with unique memories. Aristotle discusses the properties of memory, arguing that ‘Memory is neither perception nor judgment, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by the lapse of time.’ This triggers a series of associations between space, memory, objects, and emotions for Minglin, and allows her to continue to explore connections and boundaries.
The famous French philosopher Henri Bergson elaborates in his book Matter and Memory that ‘Memory is the resistance of people to the logic of time and space. The subtle cracks between the past and the present constitute memories. Therefore, memory is a double movement.’ The appearance of a concrete object implies the emergence of a node of association between memory and emotion. The narrative nature of the object itself gives it a grandiose world of infinite depth, and it usually can trigger and pull memory. Memory, in turn, is the equivalent of the visual dimension, which underpins a particular emotion and feeling we have towards the object. In Minglin’s series of paintings Tiles As Flowing Memories Shore, she uses tiles as nodes to explore the cracks of memory and dismantles tiles from the objective world. She reorganizes them freely in the subjective world, to explore the possibilities of objects beyond the established reality.
In this series of paintings, Minglin uses visual and installation art to simulate and recreate memory. Following the guidance of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, she reassembles the ‘fragments’ of tiles, memories, and emotions in space and time, exploring their boundaries and providing a visual interpretation. The symbols of Mnemosyne like the fountain, the spring, and the Throne of Mnemosyne become indispensable elements in this series of paintings. The poems of Mnemosyne like ‘On the right side of the dwelling of Hades, you will see a spring, where a white swan stands not far away: do not go near this spring but beside it, and you will see another spring, where the clear water flows from the marshes of Mnemosyne: the gardeners watch over it.’ has also become an integral part of her paintings.
Artist Minglin He not only creates a series of paintings in this work but also interactive art installations to better trigger the audience’s empathy. This art installation allows audiences to explore and engage with the intricate relationships between memory, objects, and individuals in a more profound manner. ‘Tiles As Flowing Memories Shore’ breaks through the conventional symbolism and transcends traditional painting, touching on the ambiguous zone between the visible and the invisible, the spoken and the unspoken. This multi-layered art experience makes the viewer not only an audience but also a participant in the process of intertwining memory and reality.
