Li Huayi’s ink-and-wash paintings are intrinsically influenced by tradition chinese painting, yet they are elusive, baffling viewers by the absence of the genre’s hallmarks. Bamboo, goldfish, roosters and tigers were nowhere to be seen. Similarly, meticulously detailed pairs of birds and blooming flowers have no place in his vision. While mountains and waterfalls remained prominent, gone are the limpid predictability so well-executed by the ancient masters. Instead, Li seems to be celebrating the uncertainty, wildness and intensity of nature, breathing new life into an artistic style literally as old as the hills.
Read MoreIn his own words, Li only paints shanshui, or landscapes, rejecting both the English translation “mountains and water” and the label “landscape painting,” believing both terms to be misleading. “This is definitely not ‘landscape painting’ in the Western sense. Landscape painting in the West has its concrete archetypes. Chinese shanshui doesn’t correspond to actual mountains.”
Li’s paintings are much more spartan, mainly consisting of mountains, spruces and waterfalls. However, the simple content belies the complexity of their structure and composition, with exquisitely layered ink washes forming spectacular and illusory cloud and mountainscapes providing a backdrop to minutely detailed rocks, trees and waterfalls, Li’s works can take as long as three months to complete.
