Xingze Li (b. 1992. Yan’an, China) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Brooklyn. He has had solo and two-person exhibitions in New York City at venues including Ortega y Gasset Projects, Tutu Gallery, and Hunter East Harlem Gallery. Recent group exhibitions have taken place at the Cathouse Proper in New York City, Little Berlin in Philadelphia, and Carlsberg Byens Galleri & Kunstsalon in Copenhagen. He has curated shows including A Picnic State of Mind (2023), and F-1: Out Inside (2019) in Brooklyn, NY. Notable awards include the Marble House Project Residency (VT), 77ART Residency (VT), and Cope NYC Residency (NY). Li earned his bachelor’s degree in Oil Painting from Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in 2015 and received his MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute in 2019.
Thank you for joining us, Xingze. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a visual artist currently based in Brooklyn. Born and raised in Yan’an, a small city in northern China, I came to New York about seven years ago and have been around since then. I’d say I started my art career and truly felt like an artist after I got here, although I started painting and drawing, and trained to be a representational painter long before that.
Being in this city allows me to pay more attention to the moments of mundane life, details of domestic structures, and the light and surfaces of semi-public spaces. I particularly enjoy looking at these in reflections, at the many overlapping layers on the wall surfaces. I use art as a device to reflect my everyday living experience, documenting and recreating comforting moments that may appear ambiguous and subtle.
What brings you to art? What ideas are you exploring in your projects?
Back in my childhood, following the doctor’s advice, my parents limited my cartoon-watching time as my eyesight became very bad when I was still in kindergarten. Drawing the characters sort of became my way of memorizing and revisiting the fantasy world of cartoons I loved. As I grew, painting and drawing made me feel less lonely. Then during my whole senior high school period, spending hours at the off-campus art class every week was the best time I had. My fellow classmates and the art teacher became my community.
Since being in college in Xi’an and then moving to Brooklyn, my art practice has shifted quite a lot. When I got my first studio and my first bedroom in Brooklyn, I spent a lot of time indoors observing the light and shadows on the wall. They offered me relief. I started capturing images of those surfaces and spaces–in my home, my studio, in doorways, in hotel rooms. Then I made ethereal portraits based on the images I’d gathered, emphasizing how they affected me when I was in front of them.
What is the most exciting thing you’ve done or accomplished so far?
Last summer co-curating the exhibition ‘A Picnic State of Mind’ that included 14 talented artists with my friend Yen Yen at Tutu Gallery was truly an exciting and heartwarming journey. Yen Yen and I have loved Tutu since the very beginning of the gallery’s programming. Then we organized an online exhibition at Tutu’s website in summer 2020 during the early pandemic when many of us didn’t feel safe leaving home. The show we curated in August 2023 marked the transition of our vision from the virtual into the physical space. It reflected our growth over the past few years living in Brooklyn. How everything surrounding and related to us had changed and evolved, and how we’d gained a sense of the community as our social circle expanded. Curating allowed me to push my boundaries and leave my safety zone. The payback was enormous.
What does “community” mean to you? Has your local community inspired you as a creative?
To me, it is the place where I feel I’m seen, where I belong. It can be a friend group where we can easily get together to hang out, just relax, or have fun. It also is the space where I and others feel comforted and welcomed. It is difficult to define, but you will know it’s for you when you’re in one.
The people who come from similar backgrounds and/or share the same struggle have helped me get this far. Without their support, it would mean much less for me to stay here and create the art I love.
What are you working on right now?
I’m preparing a body of new work for a two-person show at Yi Gallery this April. It will be my first time showing at the gallery and also in the neighborhood of Sunset Park, which I am so fond of. For a long time, I have admired the vision of Cecilia Zhang Jalboukh, the director, who is currently very busy working on the brand-new space for the gallery. Sarah Pater is the artist I will show with; her painting pays attention to the daily experience of domestic spaces in a unique way. It’s truly amazing that I get to have my work next to Sarah’s as the first exhibition in the new location of Yi Gallery. I can’t wait to see everything come together on the opening day.
Do you have any advice that you would offer to others?
I don’t know if that’s good advice to offer, but I often remind myself, especially when I feel I’m missing out, that there is no such book that you must read, and there is no particular show or restaurant you have to watch or visit. The point is to reassure myself that there’s no need to worry or be afraid.
text & photo courtesy of Xingze Li
recommended by YI GALLERY
- Website: https://www.xingzeli.com
- Instagram: @xing.ze
