Lin Cheung Art & Art Fluency

30/03/2026

What are we teaching when we teach art?

I've been thinking about the difference between showing someone how I work and helping someone develop their own way of working.

Most approaches are aiming at the same thing - artists finding their voice. What I like to think of as autonomy.

Where we differ is how we think that happens.

My latest substack article explores autonomy and those differences.

Link in bio to read.

17/03/2026

Are you making work regularly and still feel like you’re guessing what to do next?

And it’s not because you lack ideas or skill, but because there’s something you don’t have a clear way of doing.

How to read your work.

This short challenge is about changing that.

You’ll start to see what’s actually happening in your paintings—how the composition is functioning, where the eye moves, what’s holding and what isn’t—so you can make more grounded decisions in your work.

It’s also a chance to experience how I teach inside Directions in Abstraction.

Starts Monday 6th April. Orientation Friday 3rd April.

Link in bio if you’d like to join.

12/03/2026

Today’s exhibition spotlight is on two artists whose work uses abstraction in distinct but equally thoughtful ways:

Leslie Parsons and Lynn Hernandez.

Leslie’s mixed media abstract work explores process, growth and becoming through pared-back, minimalist composition. Her paintings invite a quiet, personal kind of looking, where meaning emerges through contrast, balance and the relationships between forms rather than through representation. There’s a sense of spaciousness in the work, with each piece opening up an experience that can shift and settle differently for each viewer over time.

After a successful career as a graphic designer, Lynn Hernandez turned her full attention to collage art. Her work is built through texture, layering and an intuitive process that allows the materials themselves to help shape the final piece. Whether through vibrant colour or more subtle contrasts, her collages hold a strong sense of discovery and self-expression, while leaving space for the viewer to bring their own reading and emotional response.

You can see Leslie and Lynn’s work — along with the full Art Fluency Online Exhibition 2026 featuring 13 artists — via the link in my bio. The exhibition runs until 29th March.

10/03/2026

Today’s exhibition spotlight is on two artists whose work draws deeply from the natural world and the quiet language of landscape:
Kate Grimes and Cat Lee.

Kate’s work is grounded in the physical qualities of her materials. Working primarily with oil and cold wax, she builds layered surfaces that reveal depth, subtle shifts of tone and occasional flashes of brightness beneath the surface. Natural processes such as erosion, layering, exposure and concealment, growth and decay all inform the work. Her paintings reward slow looking, evoking remembered sensations rather than specific places — the quiet wonder of standing before a landscape and sensing its scale, history and atmosphere.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Cat Lee now works from her home studio in the North of England. Her evocative mixed media paintings are inspired by the natural world and the connection between internal and external landscapes. Working intuitively with oil and cold wax, alongside handmade collage papers embedded into the surface, Cat creates atmospheric pieces where texture, mark and muted colour hold traces of unfolding narratives. The works shown here are from Winter’s Breath, a series inspired by the quiet beauty of the first frosts as winter begins to arrive.

You can see Kate and Cat’s work — along with the full Art Fluency Online Exhibition 2026 featuring 13 artists — via the link in my bio. The exhibition runs until 29th March.

09/03/2026

Today’s exhibition spotlight is on two artists whose work approaches abstraction through very different visual languages:
Keemar Keemar and Kim Roelofs.

Keemar’s Milan series was created in the city during the summer of 2024, using spray paint, rollers and a hand-crafted stencil. Inspired by Milan’s rich religious culture, vibrant street art and long artistic history, the works hold a striking tension between icon and decoration. The repeated stencil forms feel both ancient and contemporary, carrying a sense of contemplation while also remaining boldly graphic and pared back.

Kim Roelofs is an artist and researcher based in southwest Sweden. Living in a multilingual environment, she explores the expression of life energy beyond words through abstract painting, asking what can be revealed and understood in visual form. Working mainly with acrylics, she builds paintings through opaque and transparent layers, allowing the image to emerge gradually through colour, movement and surface.

You can see Keemar and Kim’s work, along with the full Art Fluency Online Exhibition 2026, via the link in my bio. The exhibition runs until 29th March.

06/03/2026

Read Your Painting — a five-day challenge for abstract artists

Many artists reach a point where the question isn’t how to start a painting, but how to understand what the work needs next.

In April I’m running a short five-day challenge called Read Your Painting.

Across the week we’ll work from a few existing studies or past pieces and explore one focused idea each day. The aim is to help you look more closely at what’s happening in your work and make clearer decisions about where to go next.

• short prompt each morning
• live Zoom session each evening
• recordings available if you can’t attend live

Orientation: Friday 3 April
Challenge week: Monday 6 – Friday 10 April
Live sessions: 7pm UK

You can find full details and join here: https://mailchi.mp/d18f20238a9a/readyourpainting

Read Your Painting: A five-day challenge for abstract artists Orientation SessionFriday 3 April Five-day ChallengeMonday 6 – Friday 10 April Live Sessions7:00pm UK Sign up for the Challenge Questions you'll explore over the five days If you’ve been painting for a while, the questions often becom...

05/03/2026

There are lots of “rules” in painting.

Composition rules.
Colour rules.
Rules about focal points, contrast, balance.

These can be really useful when you’re learning. They help you notice things you might otherwise miss.

But a rule shouldn’t replace your judgement.

If you follow a rule without really looking at the painting in front of you, you can end up fixing something that wasn’t actually a problem — or painting the life out of a piece that was working perfectly well.

Rules are tools.

Use them to support your thinking, not to override it.
Let your eye have the final say.

02/03/2026

Art Fluency Online Exhibition 2026
Artist Spotlight

This week we’re highlighting three artists from this year’s exhibition.

Deb Hansen explores coexistence — the meeting point between the spiritual energy of nature and the seemingly fixed structures of the city. Her layered surfaces become a shared world where organic flow and urban geometry evolve side by side. Hard lines, textured passages and grounded colour fields hold that tension beautifully.

Jenny Reid divides her time between the North Pennines and north-east Scotland, and you can feel those rural landscapes in her work. Shape, texture and season are central to her practice. Moving from landscape into abstraction, she simplifies, edits and occasionally lets exuberance take over. Acrylics, pastels, inks, charcoal — and now collage and ceramics — all find their place.

Melanie Bettridge paints from Exmouth, Devon, drawing on coast and countryside. Her work is energetic and expressive, often built with brushes, palette knives and whatever tool feels right in the moment. There’s a strong sense of colour and movement — an enjoyment of paint itself — as inner feeling meets outer landscape.

The full Online Exhibition 2026 is now live.

See the exhibition at the link below.
https://linc-art.com/art-fluency-online-art-exhibition-2026/

25/02/2026

Today’s exhibition spotlight is on two artists whose work plays with colour, playfulness and storytelling in very different ways:
Safia Button and Kim Hollamby.

Safia is a London-based artist working mainly in acrylic and mixed media abstracts, collage and printmaking. In her abstracts she leans into expressive mark making, high contrast and plenty of colour, working intuitively and responding to each mark as it’s made. In ‘Mixed Media Study’, one of a series, she’s using a restricted palette with gestural marks to hold that balance between open space and energetic detail.

Her miniature collages explore the fragmentary nature of story-telling. Safia uses found text from printed material to construct tiny “snippets” of an imagined story; the viewer is invited to fill the gaps and become a kind of co-author, bringing their own associations to the work.

Kim describes her work as colourful, joyful and whimsical, and it absolutely is. Her paintings are full of bold, graphic forms and strong colour contrasts – sun, palm, beetles, shapes that feel both abstract and slightly narrative at the same time. There’s a sense of fun and play in the way she uses pattern and repetition, with details that reward a closer look.

You can see Safia and Kim’s work, along with the full Art Fluency Online Exhibition 2026, via the link below.
https://linc-art.com/art-fluency-online-exhibition-2026-2/

23/02/2026

Art Fluency Online Exhibition Spotlight

Today’s exhibition spotlight is on two artists whose work both leans into layering, memory, and quiet complexity:
Carol Cross and Shelagh Musgrave.

Carol creates non-objective abstract work in mixed media – acrylic, collage, textiles, stencils. She works intuitively, letting asymmetry, spontaneity and those “unintentional” marks stay in the painting as evidence of process. Her pieces often feel calm at first glance, but the more you look, the more you notice subtle shifts in texture, pattern and those flashes of saturated colour against softer palettes.

Shelagh is a Scot living in the Midlands, and her work in this exhibition comes from walking in the Scottish Highlands – the weather, the land, the remembered feeling of being there. Many pieces begin almost accidentally on a working surface, and slowly reveal their own direction over time. Layers are built up and revised in mixed media, with “mistakes” absorbed into the surface so that other stories sit quietly behind what’s visible.

You can see their work – along with the full Art Fluency online exhibition of 13 artists – via the link below.

https://linc-art.com/art-fluency-online-art-exhibition-2026/

18/02/2026

Today i wrote a longer Substack piece about this exhibition – not so much a promo, more a look at what sits behind it.

It’s about what I notice when I’m scrolling through these paintings: the very different voices, the years of work behind them, and the teaching relationship that helps that develop. There are a few echoes from my previous life as a psychotherapy trainer in there too, and some thoughts on what we really mean when we say “finding your voice”.

If you’re interested in the learning side of art – how people grow a practice, tolerate being seen, and keep going long enough for something recognisable to emerge – you might enjoy it.

You can read it via the Substack link in my bio. If you do, I’d love to hear what resonates for you.

16/02/2026

✨ The Art Fluency Online Exhibition is now live ✨

Over the last few weeks I’ve been quietly working behind the scenes, bringing together work from artists who’ve been part of my courses and coaching over the last three years. Today, it’s all come together – and I’m feeling pretty chuffed.

This exhibition is a celebration of:
• the work these artists have made
• the risks they’ve taken in developing their own visual language
• and everything we’ve all learned along the way (me included – curating and setting this up has been a whole new education).

You’ll find a wide range of abstract paintings, drawings and mixed media works.
All prices shown include packing and postage worldwide, with the artist shipping directly to you.

I’d love you to:
• take a look through the gallery
• see what catches your eye
• and, if you have a moment, leave a comment in the visitors’ book to let the artists know what speaks to you.
🔗 You can view the exhibition here: https://linc-art.com/art-fluency-online-art-exhibition-2026/
Thank you for being here and helping us mark this moment.