Born in 1959 in Athens,
Ohio, Maya Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior
at Yale University, she submitted the winning design in a national
competition for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington,
D.C. She was trained as an artist and architect, and her sculptures,
parks, monuments, and architectural projects are linked by her ideal
of making a place for individuals within the landscape. Lin, a Chinese-American,
came from a cultivated and artistic home. Her father was the dean
of fine arts at Ohio University; her mother is a professor of literature
at Ohio University. “As the child of immigrants you have that
sense of, Where are you? Where’s home? And trying to make a
home,” remarks Lin. She draws inspiration for her sculpture
and architecture from culturally diverse sources, including Japanese
gardens, Hopewell Indian earthen mounds, and works by American earthworks
artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Her most recognizable work, the
”Vietnam Veterans Memorial,“ allows the names of those
lost in combat to speak for themselves, connecting a tragedy that
happened on foreign soil with the soil of America’s capital
city, where it stands. Lin lives in New York and Colorado.
For additional biographic & bibliographic information:
Gagosian Gallery, New York | Wikipedia
Maya Lin on the Art21 blog |
