This Spring in the year of 2020, Mixed media on canvas, 400x1200cm, 2020

The Spring of 2020 (Painting)

This exhibition chooses “Spring” as its title, showcasing her latest pieces in 2020. They are a natural continuation of her previous series “La Bleu J'adoré” and “The Peach Garden” which refuse to be pinned down, just yet. The exhibition revolves around Zhou Li’s recent theme of “natural space, urban space, humanistic space”. Its signature color schemes and materials, its strokes that incorporate traditional calligraphy, and its idiosyncratic visual system and rhythm, together create a sense of space that is both symbolic and striking. Thus, these works throw all the frustrations, hardships, and hope in the spring of 2020, as well as all the emotions, reasons, and thoughts triggered by spring in the broader sense, into the ineffable “gaze into space”.

These new works include a ten meter long large painting The Spring of 2020, divided into an asymmetrical left and right. The left half of the painting presents a scrimmage between blue and green, two colors that bite and invade into each other, one is like the negative of the other, creating an ephemeral sense of speed and loss. Splintered strokes and pink fragments could be found in the mix, like crispy echoes resounding in space. They come with no symbolic meaning, purely visual, tantalizing the audience with their tangled memories of the spring of 2020. The right half of the painting, on the other hand, reminds one of weeds full of vitality and a feral quality, wild strokes echoing and supporting each other. Rather than expressive, we should probably characterize them as introspective and dependable, originating from a tacit trust in the energy of life. These strokes obscure the pink looming in the background. Zhou Li once said, pink represents love and hope shared by all; here, pink is the secret hidden in the urban, humanistic space: we can rarely see pink in a busy city, but the breath and warmth of humanity can be found in everyone’s heart.

This Spring in the year of 2020, Details

The large painting makes one think of an interview with Zhou Li about the pandemic: every day, one is immersed in sadness and pain, and finds art to be futile in the face of tragedies. Any work about the pandemic is an exploitation. But the pandemic will become part of the life experience, and every thought and action one takes thereafter shall start from this premise. This painting has nothing to do with the pandemic itself, but can be appreciated by everyone who has gone through the pandemic, for everyone has changed, for everyone’s gaze has now taken on a hue of pain and reflection.

The length of the other six works entitled “Spring” is respectively 6 meters. With this shorter title of a series, and in this special year of 2020, they present retrospectively every kind of spring that human beings have experienced. Not only warm natural scenes and flowers can be found in spring, but also collective memories of happiness and disasters. What’s more important is that every human has a unique memory about spring in his/her limited length of life. These experiences may be insignificant, but they are the most reliable parts which build together a humanistic space. Urban space and natural space are both parts of this space of humanity, because they also provide authentic experiences of lives instead of mere concepts or stands, with the tolerance of nature and the vitality of a city.

This Spring in the year of 2020, Details

The space of spring has no national boundaries, nor borders between cities and nature. It is ubiquitous, because every human being can find the spring and has his/her unique connection to it. Zhou Li believes that a human being’s perception of the world is eventually based on his/her perception of him/herself. No matter where we are, what concepts or stands we hold, we have deep in our hearts the desire for love and peace. As long as we know this, we can cherish the equality and freedom even in a time of differences and confrontations. This is not only the traditional value in ancient Chinese thoughts, but may also be the new starting point of the post-modern world today. The world has too many crises and too many concepts today, and before all the debates and speeches, people should find each other again as pure creatures of the universe, born from the love of heaven and earth. The contemporary art scene has enough reflections and questions today, so Zhou Li tries to give an answer.

Painting Draft

The Spring of 2020 (Installation)

Installation View of The spring of 2020 The spring of 2020 feels like a knocked over glass of water, or a fall into the abyss. It’s about unprepared sadness and fears. However, the plants in my garden remained the same, like an outsider of everything. They have been protected by nature. And their colors and textures helped me to find a way in the darkness. They have pointed out where the “The Peach Garden” is.

The materials of this work include dried flowers (collected in 2020), reinforcing steel bars, cloths and cement. These materials have been shaped according to the forms of flowers, or the touches in Chinese calligraphy, with different kinds of lines. These lines are warm, but the materials are cold. The work as a whole, is a freeze-frame of a scene with zero gravity.

Installation View of The spring of 2020 

Installation Draft

Zhou Li

Graduated in 1991 from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Oil Painting. Lived and worked in France during 1995-2003. Former titles: Guest Artist of Shenzhen Art Academies; Guest Professor in Art Design College of Shenzhen University; Artistic Consultant of Shenzhen Airport. Current titles: Director of the Institute of Abstraction and Contemporary Arts, in the Centre of Research on Artistic and Cultural Innovation and Development, Sun Yat-sen University since 2015; Guest Professor in Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Oil Painting since 2013; Art Director of Boxes Art Space of OCAT Shenzhen since 2015; Art Director of Boxes Art Museum since 2017; Director of No.5 Studio in the Department of Oil Painting of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

Latest solo exhibitions: “Shadow of the Wind”, February –June, 2017, Yuz Museum (Shanghai); “The Ring of Life: Zhou Li Solo Exhibition”, September, 2017, Hive Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing); April— June, 2019, “Standing in the middle of the window”, White Cube Bermondsey (London). Collectors of her works include museums, groups and individuals.

Image and Text Courtesy of the Artist.

Edited by Sue and Emily