Larry Li
Larry Li is a Chinese American artist born and raised in the Bay Area, California. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His practice operates in a space of cultural and material contrast.
He combines the visual language of Chinese culture with his experiences as a child of immigrants in the United States. Painting, drawing, collage, and found photography find their way into the work to visualize his personal narrative of the Chinese American experience. He draws from family and historical photographs to delve into the intersections of familial and political histories.
Casting a critical lens on both the east and west and exploring the complexities of that hybridity. The works at times shift between where the photograph ends and where the painting begins. Li questions these modes of representation, and their validity to depict memory from the perspective of a culturally detached individual.
His figurative paintings layer drawings on top of the paint, and paint on top of photo transfers, with cultural symbols embedded throughout. The layered materials illustrate a mental and physical grappling and confrontation of his own cultural amnesia.