Concept
Artists: Duan Jianghua, Duan Zhengqu, Ding Yi, Fang Lijun, Fang Shaohua, Guo Zuchang, Jing Shijian, Lei Bo, Li Jikai, Li Shuchun, Liu Ke, Mao Yan, Su Xinping, Wei Guangqing, Yan Lei, Yuan Yuan, Xu Wentao, Xue Song, Zhang Fangbai, Zhao Peizhi, Zhong Biao
Any artistic creation necessarily contains concepts, but in contemporary art, concepts even once transcend the material existence as a result. The process of the change of oil painting language is also the process of the change of thoughts and concepts. Nowadays, the theme, schema, language, material and techniques of traditional oil painting are constantly being subverted, Chinese oil painters based on the contemporary era have long broken through the barriers of "painterliness" and regard painting as a representation of contemporary social thoughts and concepts, or take the production mechanism of painting itself as a form of expression, as well as entering the holistic practical dimension of action, cross-media and interlingual. Of course, this conceptual change is not to abandon the accumulated traditions in the long course of history, but to incorporate a wider range of traditional resources and multiple body perceptions in time and space in a new ideological dimension. On the one hand, it is accompanied by the changes of western artistic concepts, and on the other hand, it tries to highlight some subjective discourse construction rooted in its own practical experience and context.
Li Jikai
Li Jikai, born in 1975 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1999. In 2020, he graduated from the Chinese National Academy of Arts with a doctorate degree in fine arts. He is now teaching at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts.
Li Jikai has been considered as a main representative of the post-70s generation of the New Animation in China. His paintings have been characterized by remarkable brushwork and poetic sensibility. In addition to following the change-oriented Political Pop movement that emerged in China in the 1990s, the artist brings together images and subjective consciousness, which allows his artistic works to have the distinctive features of the New Paintings. In doing so, he has taken the painting and writing influenced by the generation of animation to the next level.
Li Jikai started to create the Youth in 2000. After encountering the ideal of happiness, daydreaming, meditation, and neuroticism, the Youth created by the artist seems to engage with many tangible things in the outside world, such as mushrooms, watermelons, and tents. Henceforth, the Youth appears to be a self-portrait of Li Jikai and also functions as an entry point to time, childhood, contemporary society, and dreamland, which indicates the spiritual journey of the post-70s generation of Chinese artists. What has been portrayed in the paintings is not only a sense of loneliness and sentimentality shared by many in the last century but also the neo-expressionist characteristics.
The artist has exhibited at many prestigious venues in China and internationally, including the National Art Museum of China, Beijing Today Art Museum, Long Museum (Shanghai), Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai Power Station of Art, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Saatchi Gallery (London, UK), Tokyo Art Club (Japan), Cobra Museum of Modern Art (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), and the Pacific Heritage Museum (San Francisco, USA). His works have been collected by major art institutions and collectors, including Beijing Today Art Museum, Long Museum (Shanghai), He Xiangning Art Museum (Shenzhen), Guangdong Art Museum, Hubei Art Museum, Wuhan Art Museum, MoCA (Singapore), and the Franks-Suss Collection (London).
