"Li’s paintings ask us to look harder. They are landscapes and still lives, painted en plein air – on-site and through sustained observation of the subject. And yet, the finished paintings don’t identify their subjects in any easily digestible, recognizable way. They are unabashed thickets and layers of impasto oil paint, ecstatic celebrations of color and pigment, and can weigh as much as fifty pounds. Her marks alternate between broad brushstrokes and sinuous lines squeezed directly from the tube, and they could easily be read as all-over abstractions. For this reason, Li is often discussed in relation to New York School abstraction. Her project is certainly similar to the one espoused by Hans Hofmann, who believed in finding abstraction (space and color relations) through the process of looking and drawing from life. But Li’s work cannot be read in a vacuum outside of her own complex identity and background, and simply in terms of the legacy of New York School abstraction. For Li, the copious use of oil color, the freedom to move beyond prescribed subject matter and faithful depictions, and the ability to travel around the world in search of place, was hard-won." - Jennifer Samet
On view from January 9 - February 1 at NADA East Broadway : 311 East Broadway, 2nd floor, New York, New York, 10002. Opening reception on Friday, January 12, 5-8PM.
Alice Gauvin Projects is pleased to present "Traveling Light," a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Ying Li. "Traveling Light" is hosted by New Art Dealers Alliance at their beautiful exhibition space on the Lower East Side. An artist's reception will be held on Friday, January 12, from 5-8PM. An exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase.
This exhibition's title, "Traveling Light," is is a paean to the nature of light across landscapes, particularly as depicted by Ying Li – capricious, ever-changing, ever-new. It also speaks to an important facet of her artistic practice. Li is a seasoned traveler, participating in residencies across Europe and America and accompanying her partner, jazz trombonist Conrad Herwig, when his band goes on tour. Over the years, Li has become adept at traveling with still-wet canvases - some of which weigh as much as fifty pounds - across international borders.
And yet, although she is physically encumbered by her painting materials - and, gradually, the works themselves - Li's jubilant approach to each new terrain and manifest delight in color and line shows us that she can, and does, travel light.
Ying Li is an American painter and art educator, born in Beijing, China, immigrated to the United States in 1983. She is the Phlyssa Koshland Professor of Fine Arts at Haverford College. BFA Anhui Normal University, China 1977, MFA Parsons School of Design, 1987. Ying Li lives and works in New York City and Haverford, PA
Ying Li’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including internationally at Centro Incontri Umani Ascona (Swizterland), ISA Gallery (Italy), Enterprise Gallery (Ireland) and Museum of Rochefort-en-Terre (France); and in New York City at The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The National Academy of Design Museum, Lohin Geduld Gallery, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Lori Bookstein Fine Art; as well as at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), James Michener Museum (Doylestown, PA), Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College (Haverford, PA), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Valley House and Sculpture Garden (Dallas, TX), Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) and Hood Museum at Dartmouth College (New
Hampshire).
Among her awards are: The Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize for Painting and Henry Ward Ranger Fund Purchase Award, both from The National Academy Museum; Donald Jay Gordon Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Swarthmore College; Artist-in-Residence, Dartmouth College; McMillan Stewart Visiting Critic, Maryland Institute College of Art; Ruth Mayo Distinguished Visiting Artist, The University of Tulsa; Frances Niederer Artist in Residence, Hollins University and Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome. She is the recipient of various Residential Fellowships in Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, Canada and France.
Li’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, Art in America, The New York Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, artcritical and Hyperallergic, among the others.