Born in 1959 in Yilan County, Taiwan
Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan
Lin Ju showed his talent at an early age, receiving high recommendations from his teachers, and winning the children’s pictorial contest at the Japan World Exposition in 1970. Starting at age 13 he began to paint in oil, and later studied at the Department of Artistic Design at the Fou Hsin Trade Art School. His first oil painting in 1977, Memory in a Semicircle, was selected for the Taiyang Art Exhibition. His works have been shown in provincial and national exhibitions. Lin Ju received the Young Talent Award in the Young Artists' competition of Lion Arts in 1979.
In the real world, Lin Ju is a storyteller, a traveler in a dreamland who sometimes appears eccentric, with perhaps a bit of feigned insanity. He believes in the idea of life, with religious, even cultish passion. The imagery of his painting depicting entities with severed limbs devouring each other, seemingly points out another way to salve his calloused soul. Often terrifying at first sight, Lin Ju’s work is permeated with a peculiar sense of mysticism and irrationalism.
In 1986 he co-founded art group Xirang, or Living Clay, with his friends. Together they held group shows in different places in 1988, 1991, and 1996. The experiment of pure painting by Lin Ju, solitary confinement for 90 days, was held at the Jia-ren Gallery in 1985, which garnered attention from Taiwan’s art circle. Lin has exhibited extensively, including a solo show at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2002); Visions of Pluralism: Contemporary Art in Taiwan, 1988–1999, National Art Museum of China (1999); Taipei Fine Arts Museum Biennale (1996), as well as group exhibitions in New York, Madrid, Lisbon, and in cities throughout the U.S.