Further Details
LI HUAYI (B. 1948)
Selected exhibitions
2011 Beijing Centre for the Arts, Beijing, China (solo)
2010 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA (group)
2007 Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, China (group)
2006 Shanghai Art Museum, China (group)
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts, USA (group)
2004 Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California, USA (solo)
1998 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (group)
Notable collections
Art Institute of Chicago, USA
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California, USA
British Museum, London, UK
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts, USA
Museum of Fine Art, Boston, USA
Li Huayi, born in Shanghai, studied traditional Chinese paintings as a child with Wang Jimei, the son of artist Wang Zhen. He worked as a propaganda artist during the Cultural Revolution and in 1982 he left China for San Francisco to study at the San Francisco Academy of Art University where he received training in Western art.
Li's subject matter is primarily landscape with intricate details of trees and rocks set against an expressive splashed-ink background. His imagination is driven by his interest in Buddhism and the scenic landscapes he saw during his travels in China. Whilst inspired by Northern Song landscape paintings he continuously modernizes his style, employing methods such as splashed ink and abstract expressionism. His works contrast meticulous (gongbi) and expressive (xieyi) brushwork within the same composition, embodying the elegance and subtlety of classical Chinese ink paintings with a splurge of light, space and energy unseen in the genre.
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