Baltimore-based artist Linling Lu on weaving color, culture, and music into her work

In this Q&A, Lu shares more about her work, Circle Dance, currently on view in the Frary Gallery and her unique approach to color field painting. 

For Linling Lu, who trained as a classical pianist during her upbringing in southern China, color is a musical element where chroma, intensity, and pattern form a language that is both complex and harmonious, as well as a modern counterpoint to the Baltimore-Washington area’s history of color field painting.

In her work Circle Dance, which is on view at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s Irene and Richard Frary Gallery until Sept. 6, 2025, as part of the exhibition Strong, Bright, Useful & True: Recent Acquisitions and Contemporary Art from Baltimore, 10 concentric orbs reverberate with rhythmic and musical energy. This metal print set references heavenly bodies, geometry, and Renaissance-era tondos and is similar in composition to Lu’s larger hand-painted circular paintings.

Lu shares more about Circle Dance and explores the broader inspirations and themes behind her other works, which marry visual and musical art.

Is Circle Dance inspired by a specific classical piece, composition, or artist?

It is inspired by a cluster of ideas about circle dance as an ancient, living, universal way that people connect. A related painting that comes to mind is The Dance by Henri Matisse. A good example of ballet and concert work would be Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

From a personal perspective, I grew up seeing tribal dance—Miao circle dance, also known as Hmong dance—in southwestern China for the celebrations of new year. The simplicity of the shape and the complexity of the dance, both musically and visually, left an impression on me.

How would you describe the relationship between musical and visual art?  

There are musical ideas in visual art as much as there are visual ideas in music. Claude Debussy’s compositions and Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings come to mind as examples. They are two branches of a tree that have different flowers yet share one root system deep in the ground.

How do you think your work reflects or captures the movement of music versus just sound?

Music is sound put together with creative thinking. To include and sustain complex information, there is interesting geometry and math in music, from the overall structure of a composition to a small group of notes in a measure. First trained as a classical pianist, my work not only suggests the movement of sound, but also considers creative ideas behind composers’ work.

A recent piano study of Bach’s Fugue in Three Voices brought me to an exploration of weaving three composers’ inspirations into one installation. In Bach’s piece, a subject is introduced by one voice and is successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the voices. The contrapuntal composition introduces a subtle, complex conversation.

This led me to my upcoming solo exhibition titled Fugue in 3 Voices at Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum in Florida, which will be on view from November 2025 through April 2026. The large-scale, site-specific installation responds to three music compositions: Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica. During the exhibition period, the three compositions will be performed by the Naples Philharmonic as part of their Masterworks series.

Can you tell us more about the significance of the colors in Circle Dance?

In Circle Dance, the colors are key performers for this work, as they connect to music and textiles found in various circle dances across the world at different times.

In what ways do you imagine art like Circle Dance serving as a bridge for conversation and building community across language, age, geography, etc.?

The Circle Dance is about connecting and embracing the moment of the present. With inspirations across geography and history, the work naturally serves as a bridge for conversation and building community with a lighthearted approach.

What do you hope people take away from your piece?

Joy and reunion in their inner worlds.

Can you talk about how you see your work fit in among D.C.-Baltimore’s history of color field painting?

I was introduced to color field painters like Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella, and Morris Louis in a color abstraction class by professor and artist Timothy App at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Many inspiring works with a focus on color unlocked my potential to work with color and music. They also underscored the endless possibilities with color and form. My work is rooted in music, and creating paintings is to make music to the eye.

You’ve said that you’re in love as much with the practice and exploration of the craft as much as the result. What value do you see in that continual pursuit of new knowledge and understanding?

In the life of a painting, the “result” is not an end. Like a seed planted, it begins a new circle of life in the viewer’s eyes. A good seed takes effort and good nutrients to make, and it can make a big difference.

What other work or artist in Strong, Bright, Useful & True left an impression on you and why?

Among the many meaningful works in this exhibition, Oletha DeVane’s and Joyce J. Scott’s works and their use of found objects left an impression on me. They resonate with my earlier, decade-long endeavor working with textile and found materials in two series, Agitated Meditation and Passage of Time, which comprise about 70 pieces of work.

What is the significance of having this work on view in the heart of the nation’s capital?

Like dandelion seeds fly anywhere the wind takes them, and in some cases, land and thrive, the significance of having this work on view in the heart of the nation’s capital is the endless possibilities to grow and unfold conversations.