Kevin Chin: Refuge

Kevin Chin’s new paintings series is made in the context of the global migrant crisis, the resurgence of political parties like One Nation and Reclaim Australia, the US election of Trump, and continuing debate around nationalism, belonging and alienation. He takes potent iconography – temporary shelter structures, children in queues, and long distance crossings – and restages them through his own lived experience. In this way, he creates new images that bridge our shared experience, exploring universal themes of journey, transition, and sanctuary.

Kevin Chin, Pilgrimage, 2017, oil on linen, 132 x 198cm. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer gallery, Melbourne

Metaphoric of the cultural breadth of his influences, Chin’s painterly languages vary from sweeping sections of pure colour, to intense elements of meticulous precision. Combining a distinctly gentle palette with a keen intellect, he crafts an idiosyncratic blend of wit and longing. The fluidity of his paintwork merges the everyday with the otherworldly, creating borderless, wondrous new territories.