C24 Gallery is pleased to present Shining Seas, our first solo exhibition by New York City-based artist, Eleen Lin. This collection of oil paintings, watercolors and drawings are all part of Lin’s continuing series, Mythopoeia, inspired by the classic novel by Herman Melville, Moby Dick, selections from which were featured in her 2022 show with Tammie Rubin, Mythodical.

In this latest iteration of a project now going into its twelfth year, Taiwan-born, Thailand-raised Lin moves past the idiosyncratic mistranslations between the English and Mandarin versions of the book that informed her earlier works and draws inspiration from the multiple dimensions of relevance between Melville’s text, current cultural themes and circumstances, and her own life. She also explores some of the lesser known themes in the book, such as homoeroticism, and in particular, the multiculturalism inherent in the text through references to overlapping literary sources from around the globe.

The title of the exhibition, Shining Seas is a reclaiming of the expression, “…from sea to shining sea…” from its earliest associations with the concept of Manifest Destiny. These words were originally used by early American colonists and even US president Andrew Polk in his 1845 State of the Union Address, articulating the concept that the United States should stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. However, from Lin’s perspective as a “third culture kid,” the iconic American novel transcends nationalist, colonialist ideologies to explore more universal narratives.

Eleen Lin’s dreamy evocations of Moby Dick’s themes are filtered through her own personal experience as an immigrant, artist and new parent. At a time when issues around national identity, ethnicity and safety are enmeshed in a rising tide of global conflict, we welcome the opportunity to share these exquisitely rendered, meditative, and symbolic explorations of beauty and possibility.