Yongzhen Li: Structures of the unsaid

Yongzhen Li’s delicate paintings stand in contrast to the psychological and symbolic violence inherent in their subject matter. For Li, this violence is baked into an age-old Chinese patriarchal culture that continues to shape notions of identity, gender and emotional conformity. In response, Li produces paintings that would be counter-narratives if they weren’t so open-ended, existing in that liminal space between resistance and confrontation.

Stylistically, Li’s work begins within the traditions of Chinese painting, which employs ink, brush, xuan paper and mugwort dye as its material base. Those familiar with xuan paper will know there is no erasure, a constraint that parallels the social conditioning Li is at odds with. But with every constraint there is a liberty, and Li finds this in the brush itself, how its flexibility allows for subtle depictions of internalized emotions, that which can’t be seen, only felt. As for recurrent motifs, Li favours fragmented bodies, scarred trees, crossed arms, kneeling figures and dogs.

An exemplary work is Betrayed Him and the Fate of Becoming Him (2025). Here, a child in pyjamas points an accusatory finger at an older man, presumably his father, who has the body of a tiger and is dressed in a Speedo with a scarf knotted below his chin. The father’s fist is raised, but it is not directed at the boy. At level with the man is a woman, rendered lightly in the Western style. She is lying across a chesterfield, her back to us, a towel covering her midsection. Is she in pain? Or is she bracing for it? Bracketing the scene are trees and what could be boulders, the largest of which looks on, balefully.

jccgv.com/art-and-culture/gallery