LINGRUI LOU
The Theater of Instruction (Left) ; The Fles
Media : penceil, water color
Size : 30cm * 40cm
Date Completed : 2025/08/07
This series of paintings explores how authority disciplines the body and reshapes identity through education and technology.In “The Theater of Instruction,” animal-headed teachers preside over a surreal classroom where obedience replaces individuality. The staged setting exposes how systems confine rather than free.In “The Flesh and the Machine,” human forms fuse with grotesque hybrids of technology where a monstrous figure clings to a computer. Its face distorts in discomfort, and objects blur into tools of control. Here, technology has become a mechanism that standardizes and alienates people.Through this work, I suggest that bodies are measured and trained into subordination and compliance, be it under teachers or machines. With this comparison, I explore the phenomenon of institutionalized discipline that permeates and penetrates our interactions.
installation art
This suspended model, bounded by threads, symbolized the individual in the society. The threads represent the the latent factors that trigger various emotions. This installation illustrate the fragile, complex, and ever shifting emotion of humans.
The sofa combined with elements such as mottled hand and print marks are used to demonstrate the complex state of distance of the individual in a social context. Illustrating individuals in contemporary world are seeking for the boundaries of adherence and self.
Tear into the Ocean
Media : Oil Painting
Size : 30cm × 40cm
Date Completed : 2025/7/8
The self-portrait reflects my curiosity and imagination about the world. My tears, along with the flights of birds, flow into the ocean, speaking of my anxiety. The birds represent the hope of transcending the known facts and possibilities. Through combining the natural elements and my own images, I want to demonstrate how the inner feeling and the external world connect. To me, tears not only represent sadness, but also remind us of the fragility that can be transferred to power. Drawing could be a method to transform emotions into new things, and a way to remodel how I view the world. In this piece, I attempt to combine fragility and imagination, in the belief that art creates true freedom.
In Hongkong & In Jiangxi
Medium : Oil Painting
Dimensions : 60cm × 60cm
Date Completed : 2025/7 - 2025/8/
Left painting: This showcases a busy Hong Kong street, which is filled with taxis and neon signs and interrupted by a surreal pink tentacle. This absurd form of humor reflects the noise, speed, and pressure of Hong Kong life.Right painting: The second painting depicts a tranquil Jiangxi alley with wooden houses and tiled roofs. A solitary figure in blue leaves footprints on the stone path, evoking stillness and cultural memory. The works altogether highlight the tension between spectacle and silence, modernity and tradition. In this way, I want to invite the viewers to reflect on how different places shape our sense of belonging.
Laughter as a Cage-Sketchbook
Medium : Collage on Paper, Colored Pencil on Sketch
Dimensions : 21x25cm
Date Completed :08/10/2025
The red signal “STOP” symbolizes my eagerness to resist and my desire to end bullying. The weird organisms and cautious eyes, a constant feeling of being supervised and the sense of loneliness. Each element – the gaze, the cage-like structure, the twisted body – captures the reticent pain of alienation. These works represent how ridicule transforms my body into an awkward figure yet also restores my true self underneath: a person with sentiments, a being with self-awareness. Converting these memories into images, I reclaim the power that was deprived from me.
Threads and absence
Medium : Collage on Paper
Dimensions : 62x30cm
Date Completed : 2025/08/03
This explores the fractured relationship between my father and me by using collages and drawings to mirror the fragmentation of memory and intimacy. The house, built from overlapping photographs, is both a shelter and a rupture. The gaps between the collages suggest the moments of closeness alongside absence. The red threads represent fragile and intermittent connections. This reminds us of warmth that once existed but now feels distant. The backs facing away from each other hint at separation. Silence and the lack of communication that shaped us into strangers, even though we are family. In the painted scenes, a torn ground divides my father and me, symbolizing the unbridgeable gap created by absence and misunderstanding. Through this work, I confront the pain of distance within my family. It is both a record of loss and an attempt to heal.
Zongzi
Medium : Collage on Paper
Dimensions : 62x30cm
Date Completed : 2025/08/03
This piece carries my memory of being bullied because of my figure during high school. I was labeled as a “fat girl”. Those collages explain our inner activities as figures become the object of others' ridicule. “Mengzi”, the nickname, is more than a nickname in my mind. It is also a symbol of alienation, distorting my perception of myself. Through those collages, I want people to see the silent pain beneath the ridicule. The collages turn individuals struggling into a fragility, survival, and a visual narrative of seeking self-acceptance.
In Hong Kong
Media : Oil Painting
Size : 60cm * 60cm
Date Completed : 2025/7 - 2025/8
These two paintings capture the contrasts and connections between New York and Shanghai through the lens of everyday urban life. Left: In this work, a pair of orange boots dominates the foreground; the sleek surface of the boots reflects the energy of Times Square. Billboards, taxis, and glass towers altogether frame a scene of movement and spectacle, symbolizing ambition and the relentless pace of a global city. Right: In this work, the narrow alleys of Shanghai reveal another kind of vitality. Laundry, scooters, and a tricycle whose painted face adds humor to the scene. This narrow and crowded corner embodies the warmth, improvisation, and resilience of daily life, which is often overlooked in grand narratives of modernity.These two works juxtapose two perspectives—one monumental, and another more grounded and warmer. Through this contrast, I explore how cities shape identity and imagination.
