Biography
CHEN LI (Beijing, 1988)
Chen Li graduated at the Fine Arts Academy of Rome in 2012. She now lives and works in Turin.
Chen’s paintings represent mainly floral abstract compositions developing though into faces, animals and informal shapes, using the colors in a very original way. The recurring tones of green and orange make the subjects almost suspended in a floating and mysterious dimension, which transports the viewers into the artist’s universe. The influence of the Chinese tradition is evident, but the artist is able to re-elaborate it with a sense of contemporaneity and originality, involving us in her intimate world, that could even become our.
“Chen Li lives in a colorful darkness, never melancholic, noisy and vital- istic, a painting of errors and perfection at the same time. Everything competes, harmoniously, in the intricate tangle of signs and layers, free brushstrokes and marks created with “defective” brushes whose normal fate would be to be discarded. Like spontaneous suggestions, instead of taking their lives, Chen Li uses them to add additional layers, details, filaments resembling twigs or traces. She covers and then uncovers, perhaps just as she does with her own feelings. What is never given a priori, that kaleidoscope of forms that appear spontaneous and then, in the shock of seeing them emerge, are erased and covered with new ones destined for the same fate. Something new always arises in her painting process, just as in our way of seeing her paintings” (Lucrezia Nardi)
Selected Recent Works
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS and AWARDS
2023
RESPIRO, solo show with Monography, CRAG Gallery,Turin
2021
ARTVERONA 2021, Crag Gallery (selected artist for the Verona fiere per l’arte prize)
Da Kandinsky ai contemporanei, Casa Francotto, Busca (CN)
2019
CIRCOLARE, CICLICO 2019, curated by Giorgio Bena, CRAG Gallery, Turin
2017
ENEGANART 2017 -“Rinascita”, finalista, ex Refettorio di Santa Maria Novella, Firenze2015
2016
ARTEAM CUP 2016, Palazzo del Monferrato, Alessandria (Vincitrice del Premio Speciale Tessera Sociale Arteam 2017)
2015
WE ART!, a cura di No Title Gallery, Cantiere Barche 14, Vicenza
START UP FAIR 2015, Lo Quarter, Alghero
2014
FIDENZA 1979, a cura di “Jamais Vu”, Palazzo delle Orsoline, Fidenza
2013
SE IL PITTORE NON DISPREZZA LA PITTURA, Galleria Moitre, Torino
PREMIO COMBAT, finalista, Museo Civico G. Fattori, Livorno
2012
PREMIO LISSONE, finalista, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Lissone
PREMIO COMBAT, finalista, Museo Civico G. Fattori, Livorno
2011
FABLES OF DECONSTRUCTION, bipersonale con Andrea Palamà, Underdogstudio, Modena