de Sarthe is pleased to present its fifth solo exhibition for Beijing- and New York-based contemporary artist Lin Jingjing. The exhibition, titled Elsewhere, features a new body of mixed media works on canvas that contemplate the collective displacement from reality caused by the near-surreal ongoing chain of global events. Integrating narratives of extraterrestrial phenomena into settings of vaguely familiar land and cityscapes, the artist constructs an alternate dimension revealed through a series of large-scale windows that line the gallery space. A poetic yet eerie speculation of the prevailing world at large, the exhibition illumines an imagined paradigm in which the boundaries of reality and unreality have seemingly dissipated – a dramatic reflection of the social, political, and technological concussions that currently reverberate around the globe. Elsewhere opens on 26 March and runs through 7 May.

Lin Jingjing’s Utopian Reality (2021-) is a series of mixed media diptychs comprised of silk thread, acrylic paint, and archival pigment print on canvas. The near-theatrical artworks depict solitary figures, some dressed in futuristic attire, whose faces are either obscured or turned away from the viewer. The composition of each work is partitioned by bold, black lines, as if the viewer is looking through a window. Two meters tall and two meters wide, these disproportionately large windows reveal picturesque sights of urban architecture and natural landscapes that stretch into the vast distance. Comprising lakes, mountains, as well as football fields and swimming pools, the imagery appears familiar yet estranged, lacking in identifiers that would allow one to place its location.