Li Huayi | The Sounds of Pines and Water in Spring...

Li Huayi fuses a traditional Chinese painting style with modern American abstraction to create ethereal, misty landscapes. Trained as a painter from a young age, Li was forced into a “worker artist” job during the Cultural Revolution before relocating to California, where the dramatic scenery of trees, rivers, and cliffs would inspire his distinguished style. Li draws a parallel between Chinese painting—and the underlying “chi” energy that informs its marks and compositions—and Abstract Expressionism, channeling both in his dynamic abstraction-verging arrangements and bold areas of light and dark.