China

Born in October, 1965; Shanghai, China.

Currently the Deputy Director of China Art Museum, Shanghai and a Professor at Tongji University, Li Lei was also previously the Executive Director of Shanghai Art Museum and Executive President of Shanghai Oil Painting &Sculpture Institute. Li Lei embarked on the practice and research of Chinese Abstract Art from1996, striving to combine the essence of Chinese culture with an international abstract art visual language, and develop a new proposal for Chinese abstract art. His main works include the series Dhyana Flower, Jiang Nan(Memories of South), Drunken Lake, Shanghai Flower, and Flame of Pompeii. He has held solo exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, China, and has also exhibited widely in America, Germany, Holland, and Belguim.

Li Lei has also been the founder, and organized, several major art projects, including the Shanghai Youth Biennale, the annual fair ART Shanghai, the biennial Shanghai Abstract Art Show, and also presided over the organization of Shanghai Biennale.

Publications include Shanghai Oil Painting Masters: Li Lei; Contemporary Artists of China---Li Lei: Poetic Abstract; Contemporary Artists of China Today---Li Lei: the Far Away and the Serene; Li Lei---Chinese Abstractionist; and Shanghai Flower/Li Lei.

Blessing, Spatial Installation, Plexiglass box, different kinds of textiles, wooden table, size variable, 2014-2016

“Blessing” is a basic activity of humankind to express wishes towards beautiful life and future. According to Chinese traditions, every family should worship ancestors and gods with wines, meats and burning incenses when it comes to the Spring Festival so as to pray for the safeness, prosperity and happiness in the following year. The colorful textile involves inner longings of humankind which gather together and form a vibrant power.