Ectopia

Li Hongjun’s work seems simple but it is logical and orderly, like a specialised mathematical model, and it shows his respect for the topology of pure three-dimensional space. Using this topology, the layers of archaeology and echoes of anthropology, Li Hongjun created “Drift Away”, “Inside and Outside” and “Curled Diagonal Line”. His usage of negative and positive shapes, addition and subtraction, rotation and skewing enriches the language of paper and its expression of tension.

Artist Biography

Li Hongjun’s particular life experiences have given him dual identities: as peasant and as artist. In the early 90’s he created installations in international exhibitions alongside artists such as Fang Lijun and Xu Bing, but when his wife fell ill he chose to return home and take care of her. In 2006 an admission notice from Central Academy of Art’s Experimental Art Program allowed Li Hongjun, in middle age, to return to Beijing and continue his creation of art. His “Myself”, “Expansion”, “Drift Away” and other series used displaced paper, rotation and other methods to combine eastern and western methods of paper cutting, and expressed the distortion of man’s values after encounters with the reality of modern society. Today, his many years of work have given him an outstanding reputation as an installation artist, and he has been called by CAFA’s vice-president Xu Bing “an artist with Chinese folk wisdom”.