The “portrait” is about “people”. Apparently, “people” is the most significant topic of the world. To know “people” one should start from knowing “oneself”. Faces in many artists’ works resemble their own faces. Day after day, they portrait themselves over and over; this “self-portrait” seems to be “emphasizing self-actualization” of modernism. Everything is so familiar, yet so indifferent. This phenomenon is obviously tainted with narcissism. Li Jikai, one of the Chinese post-70s cartoon generation, always indulges in his youth memories which fuel his impulses to create. Self-portraits help him to experience and converse with lamentation and loneliness in youth. “Portraits” of “Boy in Meditation” series wear hairstyle and clothes of youngsters in the 1980s. These “portraits” bear specific social and historical symbols. Unlike other artistic trends, the novel arts fashion Li Jikai represents no longer fixes on previous social and political themes but shifts to digging unconsciousness of one’s soul. His paintings describe the inner spiritual journey of the “post-70s” generation and express their essential state of mind. This is meditation in a state of “aphasia”. The artist is indulged in some nostalgic reminiscence as a constructionist. These are bizarre paintings, mysterious, peculiar, and provocative, losing us in foams of reverie with no way out. This “failed purity and outdated beauty” is what Li is pursuing and experiencing floating and failure is the core of his anxiety.
