Repetition and reproduction can mean stability and the establishment of identity: a steady beat soothes, an oft-repeated narrative reassures, and habit and routine give shape to lives that otherwise might sink into dissolution or explode into unrestrained mania. Yet repetition also bears with it a distinct horror: the threat of losing one’s identity by being made merely the same as everyone else, of being hollowed out, of the “authentic” self being replaced or altered—that which promises to stabilize identity simultaneously threatens it, trading on the unpredictability of the singularly individual for the comforting fiction of the normatively social.

David Perry, “Side Effects and Contraindications,” 2008

The chemically altered states represented in Lin’s works parallel the dream states represented in many Surrealist artworks, and her questioning of the prevailing attitude to mental health and psycho-pharmaceuticals is analogous to the Surrealist’s critical posture towards rationalism in the aftermath of the Great War. However, Lin’s position is far from the avant-garde vision of the 1920’s. She does not talk as an outsider with an evangelical voice, or propose extreme alternatives. Instead, Lin’s art is both collusive and subversive. It appropriates the language of capitalism; the slick vocabulary of advertising, designed to appeal to the viewer on multiple levels, and employs it with irony to invite critical reflection on a condition that is far more complex than the pharmaceutical companies would have us believe.

Nina Mehta Young, “Medication and Civilization,” 2008