Li Jikai's "Mushroom"
The reason why he chose such a theme, according to Li Jikai himself, is that he discovered that the plump, rounded shape of mushrooms was quite similar to a boy’s image in his imagination. The small mushroom heads and stones on the ground were also stylized as children’s faces. Although most of the big mushrooms are where the boy leans, mushrooms have gone beyond an object of nature. In other words, the mushrooms in Li’s paintings are an embodied, personified existence. This reminds me of the “Giant” series created by the artist in 2019. The composition of the figures is obviously influenced by Georg Baselitz: the giant physique with a small head together with the looking-up perspective clearly highlight the grandness and absurdity of the “mutated” body. In addition to that, the whole body has a quite unique composition, as if it is piled up by stones or sandbags of varied shapes and sizes or covered with a self-made bloated “armor”. I would say, such is an alienated form of life that cannot be named or categorized. With this, we might consider the big mushrooms as a variant of a giant.
Out of This World
Duration: 2023.11.18-2024.03.17
Venue: MOCA Yinchuan
