Lin Zhipeng (aka No.223) on nudity, Paris and forbidden love

As an artist, Lin Zhipeng (aka No.223) is obsessed with anything and everything that carries “the pulse of life”. From his sensual, evocative images of flowers to his carefree, casually erotic nudes, his work vibrates with a radiant yet carnal energy. At times introspective and reflective, at times hedonistic, his pictures are always captivating. 

Taking his enigmatic pseudonym from the lovelorn policeman in Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express, his own work evokes the stylish high-key colour of Kar-Wai’s cinematic masterpiece. The Beijing-based photographer emerged as part of a new wave of Chinese photographers pushing back against the dominant ideals of culturally conservative China. Initially garnering attention through self-published zines and social media, his lens remains trained on the surreal, extraordinary yet everyday moments in the lives of friends, lovers, and models he casts from Instagram, captured in a mixture of staged and spontaneous scenes. His pictures elevate everyday life, distilling it into frozen moments of poetry. Messy rooms, listless bodies, shafts of sunlight and other fleeting, quotidian scenes are elevated by his gaze. 

No. 223’s new photo book, Amour Défendu (Forbidden Love), was shot in Paris over the course of a week in summer 2023. It encapsulates the spirit and themes that have galvanised and defined so much of his work so far – love, friendship, beauty, liberation, desire, intimacy, bodies and gender non-conformity, and much more. His nudes on the streets and boulevards of Paris are playful – erotic, but joyful, and never gratuitous (nudity feels natural to him, not salacious).

Below, we talk with No. 223 about forbidden love, the allure of Paris, his memories of the week he spent shooting Amour Défendu, and what obsesses him as an image-maker.

Please introduce us to Amour Défendu. What’s the concept behind this body of work?

Lin Zhipeng (aka No.223): Amour Défendu is my second artistic collaboration with curator and producer Anna Mistal. We imagined nude models in the streets, where tenderness meets risk in surprising ways, and love reveals its complexity and vulnerability.  And then she brought me this idea. 

I seek challenges that push me beyond my comfort zone, especially ones that combine playfulness with creative intensity and genuine artistic expression. Returning to Paris after the long pause of the pandemic to do this project gave me exactly that. I had visited Paris many times before, but this time I came back with fresh eyes. Instead of holding onto the perspective of a visitor, I tried to experience the city as if I belonged to it. That shift allowed the photographs to embody a landscape of intimacy and love.

What is the forbidden love of the title?

223: Amour Défendu was bringing intimacy into the open, where it collides with society’s rules. When love and desire step out of private rooms into spaces that demand restraint, the tension sparks powerful questions about freedom and vulnerability. In the end, the project is less about provocation and more about creating space for reflection.

Could you tell us about the summer of 2023 and your week spent walking the streets of Paris with your camera, shooting the thousands of rolls of film that would eventually become this book? What are your enduring memories from those times?

223: I spent a week shooting in Paris in September 2023. The most unforgettable moments were the spontaneous fun of photographing my models on Parisian streets. Since none of the shoots were pre-planned, including many scenes encountered unexpectedly during our strolls, I often had to generate inspiration swiftly and complete the shoot rapidly. Many took just a few seconds, like a flash-mob game. It was incredibly interesting. I love this kind of impromptu and unpredictable adventure.

What do you find alluring about Paris as a location?

223: I really like Paris’s relaxed atmosphere and its unique romantic charm. My understanding deepened after completing the Grand Amour project in Paris in 2018. I chose to shoot in summer when the city blooms with flowers and the warm sunlight invites the body to freely expose itself beneath the rays. The streets of Paris carry an aura that feels less polished but full of lived-in authenticity – a raw beauty blending freedom and a hint of utopian atmosphere that I truly adore.

Many of your images balance raw spontaneity with careful composition. How do you navigate the line between documentary and deliberate staging?

223: For project shoots, most subjects are strangers I open called via Instagram. Unlike photographing close friends, there was inevitably a sense of unfamiliarity at the beginning. So I would guide them into a scenario – often a brief script – and let them interpret it freely. I like to capture candid moments during this process, striving to preserve the documentary authenticity of the actions within the photographs. This is my approach to photography.

Your photographs often capture youth, intimacy, and hedonism as well as more introspective, reflective moments. What draws you to these themes, and how have they evolved over your career?

223: From my earliest days in photography, one thing puzzled me: why did most internationally recognised Chinese photographic works tend to depict suffering and pessimism? I lived in a nascent era brimming with vibrant, positive, and hedonistic lifestyles – the very lives of myself and my friends, subjects readily available to me. I greatly enjoy observing people and interacting with them, seeking to grasp the distinct qualities of different individuals, even the gradual transformations of life over time. Over the past two decades, I have done a lot of worldwide travels and photographed numerous still lifes and landscapes, all integral parts of my life experience. I think my work constitutes a grand theme about my own existence: I photograph what I am experiencing. When I die, this theme will conclude.

Colour plays a central role in your visual language. What does colour mean to you, and how do you use it to express mood or narrative?

223: I have a particular preference for vintage colours that carry a sense of temporal accumulation, which is a reason I choose to work with film. Colour allows for a relatively faithful reproduction of the world as I perceive it. I also use colour to convey specific emotional contexts. Simply put, for instance, associating red with intensity, blue with calmness, pink with ambiguity, and yellow with tenderness. Much of this application in actual shooting is intuitive; my use of colour is largely guided by an instinctive sense.

Your work often features your friends or non-professional models. What makes someone a compelling subject for you?

223: It’s difficult to pinpoint specifically. It’s often an intuitive feeling at first sight. But I do have a soft spot for imaginative and interesting people.

I love how you handle and portray nudity. Can you talk a bit about what nudity means to you as an artist, and why it compels you as a motif?

223: I’ve always considered nudity to be something of an ordinary subject. It is equivalent to everything in the world – equivalent to a plate of your food, a mountain, a ray of light, a flower, an ocean wave. I don’t approach nudity with a sense of curiosity or voyeurism. I can regard it as equal to all other things. Therefore, I do not only photograph nudity. I photograph everything I encounter.

As an artist, what would you say obsesses you?

223: All things that carry the imprint of time and the pulse of life.

Amour Défendu is published by Akio Nagasawa an available here now.