ARTIST STATEMENT
My works with multiple mediums such as acrylic, pastel and charcoal. I am inspired by books, videos and the insights from daily life. With a specific focus on migration and alienation, I often illustrate the discrete, solitary status of the figures in a social, historical environment in the action of walking or facing away from the audience. No one knows who they are, where they are heading or what dilemma they are facing.
I am influenced by automatic drawing and apply it to my own works. Through creating unconscious patterns on canvas spontaneously, I attempt to find forms, symbols and moments to stare at in it, arousing the metaphors in the subconscious and aiming to weave an allegory in the interstices between everyday life and dreams. I would like my work to be just a segment within the whole narrative while objects and the space in my works are rarely recognizable at first glance, they are rather transcendent symbols drawn to evoke the audiences’ association and imagination to the imageries themselves, allowing them to develop a story on their own. Everything in my works seems to be floating and constantly switching in the gentle wind yet an underlying sense of weirdness and melancholia are pervaded.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Tingting Li is a Chicago-based Chinese artist working primarily in painting and drawing, and recently received s BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
© Tingting Li