Spring 2026 Visiting Artist ColloquiumJoyce Lin

The Art Department Colloquium is a series supported by the Anonymous Fund and the Brittingham Trust. Visiting Artist lectures are held every Wednesday during the academic year, and are free and open to the public.

Discover the latest developments in fine art, craft, and design at the Art Department’s free public lectures by some of the nation’s most prominent artists, critics, and gallery and museum directors.

Joyce Lin is a Houston-based artist and furniture maker whose practice investigates the relationship between surface and structure and the eroding boundaries between the natural and human-made. Merging meticulous craftsmanship with experimental processes in wood, found materials, fiberglass, and more, she reimagines familiar forms—chairs, tables, and other functional archetypes—as studies on dissection, reconstruction, and mimicry.

Raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Lin earned degrees in Furniture Design and Geology-Biology through the Brown/RISD Dual Degree Program, an interdisciplinary foundation which continues to inform her work today. She has presented solo exhibitions such as Material Autopsy (2023) and Hypernatural (2025) at R & Company in New York, and her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

Lin’s pieces are held in the permanent collections of the RISD Museum, The Mint Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Munson Museum of Art, Houston Civic Art Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, and SFMOMA. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Architect’s Newspaper, Dwell, PaperCity Magazine, and Objects: USA 2020 and Objects: USA 2024.

In addition to her studio practice, Lin has taught in the Furniture Design Department at the Rhode Island School of Design, supporting students in developing their personal voice as makers. She is the recipient of the 2025 John D. Mineck Fellowship from the Society of Arts + Crafts.

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