Li Wang captures life, love and longing in colour

From sunlit beaches to intimate interiors, the Beijing-born artist explores masculinity, queer diasporic experience and personal memory through vivid, evocative paintings.

Sometimes, putting yourself into new situations, like moving to a different country – despite how scary or nerve-racking – can be the best thing you can do for yourself. Li Wang, an artist who moved from Beijing to study Visual Arts at Columbia University in New York, discovered a new source of inspiration when he took the plunge to move across the seas.

“This was my first exposure to contemporary art,” he says. “Unlike in China, where art education primarily focuses on technical skills and the depiction of the objective world, in New York City, I encountered diverse works and artists who employ various visual mediums to address subjects that I deeply care about. I found this incredibly inspiring. For the first time, I realised that my paintings could become powerful tools to express myself, my perspectives and my stories.”

Having now graduated and moved back to Beijing, Li found his experience in New York to be enriching and a pivotal turning point for his practice. Not only did he immerse himself in the culture, visiting exhibitions, artist studios and talks, but he also developed his own voice as a painter. “I started to focus on my own identity and the friends around me.

Having left home for a completely unfamiliar environment, we faced a profound sense of emotional displacement,” he explains. As such, his work started to delve into the lives of queer diasporic communities, exploring their “bodies, desires and vulnerabilities”.

His interests in history and society also piqued, and with it came a study of masculinity – particularly how, in comparison to women, men have rarely come under the same scrutinising lens of objectification, especially about their bodies. “Placing men in such a passive, visual role is perceived as a challenge to, or even an infringement upon, traditional male authority,” explains Li. “Words like strength, power, propriety and steadiness are tightly bound to male identity, collectively shaping societal expectations.” Through his paintings, he strives to reframe masculinity and give a platform to those traditionally on the margins.

White underwear and socks; fashion and accessories like LV bags and Maison Margiela Tabis; checkered rugs and umbrellas; and various interior items like mushroom lamps and magazines are all recurring motifs that nod to LGBTQIA+ culture. The white underwear specifically are “visual identities for gay men within the Chinese-language internet”, says Li. All of which are worn by his characters, depicted on gorgeously sunny beaches (as in Under the Same Sun), on trips to Long Island or the desert, walking through verdant parks, the silhouettes of trees and animals reflected on the grass, or relaxing at home.

While some paintings depict colourful interior settings, like Apartment 2019 – which shows his first home in New Jersey, the under garments symbolic of “gay male desire” – much of Li’s work is set outside amongst the glow of the sun, whether that’s the heat of the summer, the soft beams of a lamp or the sharp and momentary glisten of crispy winters day, Li treats each carefully lit composition as a return to a memory.

In A Trip Without You II, Li reflects on a trip he took after a breakup with his ex, where a friend accompanied him on a trip to Las Vegas to cheer him up. Though after heading to a striptease show, it was harder to snap out of the post-breakup gloom than he thought. “I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the experience,” he recalls. “I watched everything before me with a sense of loss, my mind completely occupied by memories of the past. I was like the grazing donkey in the background, as if none of it had anything to do with me.”

In Memory in Miami II, this contrastingly depicts the first trip he took with his ex – the sun scorching down on him and sparking a “strange chemical reaction with freshly laundered clothes, the umbrellas, our sweat”. The painting is vivid and alive, as if Li were there only a short moment ago.

In all his works, there are moments of reflection, as if Li has used his brush and canvas to document and make sense of his experiences. It’s like a catharsis – once the memory has left your brain and become something physical, then it’s materialised and locked away as a moment you can look back on forever.

“My work is deeply intertwined with my personal life,” he says. “It captures my own emotions, experiences and friends who are close to me. But lately, I’ve been feeling somewhat drained. I need new experiences to reignite my creativity. I believe reading, travelling and simply living life more fully will help me a lot in that regard.”