He Art Museum, Guangdong
7/5-10/18/2025
Text/Roxy Y. Tang
Suddenly, Wu Li finds himself past forty. Mundane cause and effect such as success and failure, material possessions, human relationships, and the physical body have grown increasingly faint in his eyes. Wu Li’s paintings, long renowned for creating a wholly novel kinetic quality in his curvilinear brushstrokes, present his signature red fruits and black swans as burning, convulsing, bursting visions of intensity, suspended between reality and imagination. Yet it is precisely these images, reminiscent of some high-viscosity fluid, that have, through sustained, intense vibration, coalesced into a series of new crystallizations. A significant portion of this exhibition, “The Daylight,” will be comprised of these mountain, cloud, wind, and rain elements, assembled from the ashes of their own Nirvana.
Wu Li began studying painting early, and for decades has maintained a unique technical approach within the confined space of the canvas, alongside an expressive independence that transcends mere form. From the scar-like, heavily pigmented blazing clouds to the serene and profound mysterious glow of twilight; from dense, orderly shrubs and narrow winding paths to ethereal, dancing treetops and halos of light; from meticulously detailed depictions to layered shadows where solid and void interplay—the new watercolors Wu Li presents in this exhibition unreservedly reflect the painter’s inner journey towards sudden clarity and insight. They also herald a clever strategy of advancing by retreating.
If we were to position Wu Li within the case system of Chinese contemporary art, he belongs neither to the vanguard pushing forcefully across boundaries, nor to the stream of those who drift through the world accepting their fate. Therefore, this exhibition originates from painting and will return to the questions of painting to recalibrate thought and action. In fact, the “Psychogeography” that emerged in Wu Li’s mid-career practice—stylistically processing his surrounding landscapes to reflect genuine personal realizations—also resonates with the French philosopher Jacques Garelli’s (1931-2014) concept of the withdrawal of being. That is, the state of non-individuation has not yet fully manifested within lived experience, thereby giving rise to transcendental people, events, and things that have broken free from the form of time.
The uncanny mutability and all-encompassing nature of “the daylight” provide the painter with an inexhaustible wellspring of inspiration. Here, Wu Li enters a previously uncharted domain of dialogue, redefining questions of existence concerning color, language, and even life itself within a state of more detached freedom. What is humanity’s most effortless state? Visitors may discover the yet-unrevealed answer within the resonance between the dreamlike and the immediately perceptible.
*Originally published on The Young Artist Projects: Wu Li of He Art Museum, Shunde, Guangdong.
Yuting (Roxy) TANG 