Essay

Lichen: Li Jikai Solo Exhibition

Liu Hongxiao

“In the misty dusk or early morning, the sound of Suona can be vaguely heard. The funeral procession is sprinkling paper money. The lich under countless weeds lie prone to the wet ground, and the lights on earth light up one after another.”
(Li Jikai 《A Journey through Time》)

In the current chaotic works of art and complex criticism theories, Li Jikai’s works and words can always let me put down the heavy art history and professional knowledge in my mind and gave me a chance to use the purest and simple mind to communicate with his work without thinking too much. So dose his article, I always will forget the purpose of finding information while reading his books and fall into the journey and monument within his words. Undoubtedly, Li Jikai is a self-sufficient artist, the exhibition name “ lichen “ just comes from the title of his article. The main body of that article is not very long, it is just like short prose, and its name passed very quickly while I read a large number of his books. However, when I saw his latest work, “Lichen” suddenly appeared in my head and become quite interesting after carefully thinking about its meaning. So I simply accept this indescribable and unknown feeling, and named the title of the exhibition “lichen“.

Lichen, this small plant is not as eye-catching as flowers, nor as magnificent as trees. They snuggle closely with the land and nourished by the land and become the clothes of the earth. It is resistant to cold and drought but not pollution. It can survive in deserts and ice sheets. A little rain can revive it. If compared people’s different states in life to plants, I think there can be many interesting associations with lichen and Li Jikai. He did not want to entangle with the secular world but was pushed into the noise. The noisy life coerced him through countless years. However, neither complacency nor frustration can destroy the pure things in his heart. He still a little boy in front of art. He let himself fall into the dust and deeply feel the life, the earth, and himself. The image of the boy in Li Jikai’s paintings obviously not just a symbol. He seems to be the spiritual symbol of the artist. Looking at Li Jikai’s works from old to new, the transformation of the boy can also be seen as the growth and change of the artist itself.

No matter how grand the background is or how full the color is, the boys ‘ eye-catching sense can not be covered. In Li Jikai’s works, these boys are rebellious, world-weary, and autistic, like a small monster, stubbornly ruling his small world. But in his new works, the boy’s expression has become blurred, and even his own existence has gradually fad in some works. On the contrary, strange scenery and nameless small creatures began to climb all over the picture. Fat mushrooms tightly surrounded the tent, and little fireflies floated in leisurely. The thin boy leaned on half of the body of the tent. The whole picture gives people a feeling of comfort and tranquility. The boy is still the boy, but he is no longer eye-catching as he used to be, we may found they were fewer strong emotions breaking through the picture, and more precipitation and aftertaste after calmness.

In his landscape series, the image of the boy has completely fad out of the picture. Li Jikai devoted his attention to the depiction of the scene, including the branches and vines written in lines, the sky stacked with color blocks, the empty lake, and the plants and stones filled with the picture. The boy is no longer a part of the scenery. Maybe he left, and maybe he hide. Different people have different interpretations. But in my opinion, whether it’s the boy, the mushroom, the sky, or the wood, all these things are the sustenance of the artist’s heart. It doesn’t have to be a single role. The crisp watermelon is still juicy, the tents on the journey fluctuate like mountains, and Li Jikai’s small world is still colorful and special. The scenery in his work is vivid and poetic, such as the new work scenery with succulent plants. The unmanned bedroom seems empty, But the little details revealed endless thoughts. The boy changed from the side surrounded by people to the person watching the scenery. So he naturally withdrew from the picture and became an observer and recorder.

In the conversation with Li Jikai, he mentioned that he was just an honest painter, honest observation, and honestly live. I think it is true. The failure of creation and the frustration in daily life made him stay true, not overexertion or lack of honesty. Of course, he also mentioned that he was a helpless person, unable to wither plants wilt and the pass of time. I think this also reflects the artist’s awe of life and nature. So he lowered his attitude and fell into the dust. Like being disconnected from the times, he hide in an unnoticed corner, far away from all kinds of complacency in social life, and began to feel the link between himself and the world. He attached to the earth like a lichen and observed his breathing and living traces, so his thoughts began to take root and sprout, and his creation began to alive.

A long bleak -- the youth in Li Jikai's work

By Du Xiyun

Talent and situation make people grow different talents. People who use painting to express, first of all, like painting the behavior itself. In the process of painting, the heart of chaos can also be peeled, buffered and released, and transformed into visible strokes and colors for people to ponder and understand.

Through these years, Li Jikai's interest in painting and his mental world have been extended. In the process of painting, the more skillful he is, the more free he can express, so that the release of mood and the opportunity of encounter complement each other, and his unique characteristics will naturally reveal. Wonderful and profound, may be the viewer's expectation of art. For the artist himself, art is first of all a channel, which can release what he feels and thinks more sincerely and smoothly, rather than insincerely.

Li Jikai, who was born in 1975, is still a teenager in his paintings. In recent works, teenagers mainly stand alone or lie down in the plant world, with a gloomy look. Dark youth, dense and miscellaneous plant world, huge mushrooms growing in clusters, tent greenhouse in humid and cold atmosphere, unpredictable sky... Form a symbolic small world. The curling and slightly spasmodic strokes of silk floss are the main visual elements, making the emotions in the picture more intense and complex.

To rest in the plant world far away from the crowd is to avoid the world to find comfort. To explore the mysteries in the microbial world is to be born into another dimension. Whether seclusion or birth, the reason is to be alert to the people of the world, which comes from the sensitivity of dark teenagers when experiencing the scorching red world, ruminating and releasing in seclusion and birth. Mushrooms flourish in Li Jikai's paintings, but they also indicate rapid decay. Saprophytic fungi such as mushrooms grow and decay in a short time. In addition, they do not need to receive light, and they still maintain their original growth and development state even in an absolutely dark environment. After the combination of gloomy youth and prosperous mushrooms, a variety of meanings overlap and infiltrate between consciousness and unconsciousness, interwoven into strands of strokes and uncertain tone.

Teenagers standing or sleeping in darkness have similarities with Peter Pan, a flying boy who will never grow up, but they are different. Scottish novelist James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) invented Peter Pan, the leader of lost boys, who ventured in Neverland. The name "pan" comes from pan, the shepherd God in Greek mythology. Barry describes the beautiful boy Peter Pan. His charming smile is "wrapped in leaves and juice flowing from the tree", and his clothes are composed of autumn leaves and spider webs. Li Jikai's bleak youth is basically alone. He spends his time quietly and silently in the fate that seems to have been predicted. However, if he realizes it, he seems to have a clear state in a trance.

American psychologist Dan Kiley put forward the concept of "Peter Pan syndrome" in the Peter Pan syndrome: men who have never grown up published in 1983 to describe adults who don't want to grow up. It is not a mental disease, so some scholars then call these adults with a child mentality "kidult" - the combination of kid and adult. The gloomy young people who have lived in Li Jikai's picture for many years have different causes and meanings in the contemporary and local social atmosphere and historical soil.

Facing the deep universe, infinite time and space, changing world events and unpredictable people, our ability is extremely limited in all aspects, both teenagers and even infants. The gloomy youth in Li Jikai's painting is a kind of sincerity of mind, which is the touching foundation of his works. Of course, on the basis of sincerity, a limited life can still shine in many ways, especially: "however, be a baby in evil things and an adult in mind." (1 Corinthians 14:20)

To Li Jikai's new exhibition Lichen

Zheng Wen

Li Jikai new exhibition "lichen in Fine Arts Literature Art Center opened recently, this batch of works to bring me a new visual experience. For any one of the professional audience, this batch of paintings into the eyes of the first, is no longer about some simulations of imagery and symbols, but pleasing to accidental brush strokes and subjective color performance.

With the Landscape series as an example, the artist has inadvertently shed some of the tension of his youth. Li Jikai uses his pen in a way that is both musical and accidental, describing the psychological conception of vibrant plants and elegant leisure. His naturally loose brushwork and hand feel, as well as his gentle and expansive color gamut and composition, also indicate that his paintings are entering a more mature and freer realm.

As the title of the exhibition Lichen suggests, the main body of the series consists of landscapes and plants. The plant world or natural world represented by lichens became the main body of the painting, while the iconic image of the young man, which used to occupy the central position in Li Jikai's painting, switched to the posture of peekaboo, hiding or even disappearing in the large area of the natural world or painting brush strokes.

The works were created over a period of two to three years from 2019. The outbreak of the global epidemic in the past three years is an important warning from nature to our human-centered, technology-driven society. In such a context, do Li Jikai's images of the boys hidden in the larger-than-human watermelons, mushrooms, or trees take on new meaning? -- I have my own answer.

About the artist

Li JikaiChinese, b.1975, Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute with a master degree in 2004.He is now teaching at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts. Solo Exhibitions : 2022 LiChen: Li Jikai Solo Exhibition, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Wuhan; 2021 Rambler Wearing the Moonlight, Line Gallery, Beijing; 2020 The Curtain of Time, Line Gallery, Shanghai; There's no End, RCM Art Museum, Nanjing; 2019 Fish Scales & Bird Feathers, Luohu Art Museum, Shenzhen; The Wonder of Ymir, PiaoPiao Gallery, Taipei; 2018 The Burdens of my life, Star Gallery, Beijing; My Youthful Middle Age, Enclave Contemporary, Shenzhen; 2017 Burning Morning Flowers, Jiabao Art Museum, Wuhan; 2016 Sceneries in the Journey of Life, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; The Sleepy Farmer among the Billowing Wheat Fields, Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan; 2015 The Museum of Innocence, United Art Museum, Wuhan; 2014 Waste Picker, Amy Li Gallery, Beijing; Li Jikai, Museum Jan van der Togt, Amstelveen; 2013 White Dew -Li Jikai Painting & Ceramic works, Amy Li Gallery, Beijing; Lake & Reflection of Light, Wuhan Art Museum, Wuhan; 2012 Boy Doll and Fragment, Today Art Museum, Beijing; Fragments of the abyss,Interalia Art Company, Seoul; 2011 Existential Condition - The morality of Li Jikai's Painting, The Art Museum of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang; Within You, Without You, Dialogue Space Gallery, Beijing; 2010 Lantern, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Wuhan;Reflection, Canvas International Art, Amsterdam; 2009 Li Jikai, Arario Gallery, Seoul; Leaving Some Room for Imagination - Dual Exhibition of Li Jikai and Wang Jinsong, Amy Li Gallery, Beijing; 2008 Clear, Today Art Museum, Beijing; Unorderly Branches, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Wuhan; Walking Alone, Canvas International Art, Amsterdam; Small Worlds: Paintings of Li Jikai, Art Seasons, Zurich; Time Flows Away at Night: 2008 Li Jikai's Works Exhibition, Fine Arts Literature Art Center, Wuhan; Muddy, Tang Contemporary Art, HongKong; 2007 Clear, Shanghai Museum of Fine Arts, Shanghai; Boy and His Mirror Image, Christa Schuebbe Gallery, Düsseldorf; 2006 Li Jikai, Der-Horng Art Gallery, Tainan