Ying Li: Traveling Light by Nimble Eye Design LLC

Ying Li Traveling Light

This catalog was published in conjunction with:

Ying Li: Traveling Light

January 9–February 1, 2024 Organized by: Alice Gauvin Projects www.alicegauvingallery.com

Front cover:

Waterfall (detail) 2020-23, oil on linen, 60 x 96 in.

Alice Gauvin Projects presents:

Ying Li Traveling Light JANUARY 9 – FEBRUARY 1, 2024 NEW ART DEALERS ALLIANCE 311 East Broadway | New York, New York 10002 | 212-594-0883 | www.newartdealers.org

Wintry Gleam

2023, oil on linen, 30 x 40 in.

Traveling Light: Paintings and works on paper by Ying Li Alice Gauvin There’s something primal about Ying Li’s paintings. They are the result of strenuous physical activity—the gestural application of color using brushes, palette knives, or squeezing paint directly from the tube. Take “March of the Daffodils”—an almost comically incongruous title—a painting in which Ying squeezes, scrapes and smears her paint across the canvas to create blue and purple crags, which erupt in an explosion of white, black, green, and yellow paint. This muscular treatment, combined with the startling instinctiveness with which she handles line and color, leaves an earnest viewer a little destabilized, and a little breathless. Indeed, to look at any of Ying’s paintings is to be pulled into the rapids of artistic creation. We as viewers are privy to the bends and swerves of bringing paintings into being in the open air as weather changes, light shifts, sights and sounds come and go. The protean environments

Left:

Watermelon 1968 2021, oil on canvas, 13 x 17 in.

Right:

Duck Pond #2 2020, oil on linen, 30 x 40 in.

in which Ying immerses herself are expressed in currents, undulations, and contradictions of color and line, which create a supersaturated sensory impression, as though you were suddenly to awaken from a winter hibernation into a world teeming and seething with life. In “Wintry Gleam,” a brilliant light breaks in on the implied winter landscape, until only flashes of blue and white vie for recognition amongst a riot of pinks, oranges and yellows, with a gash of green near the center of the painting. Gazing at this frenetic canvas, one begins to feel swallowed up within its magma-like surface, dazzled by the electric hues and percussive rhythm of Ying’s marks. In “Watermelon, 1968”—an enigmatic and, given Ying’s personal history, somewhat ominous title—the red of the fruit is truncated by

white and yellow slices of paint, applied directly from the tube, calling to mind the gesture and sensation of cleaving the watermelon’s hard rind and soft flesh. Meanwhile, the dark, churning background and smeared suggestion of a horizon line (one of the few in Ying’s paintings) give a sense of drama, as though the fruit itself were a character caught mid-scene. To look at Ying’s works on canvas is an immersive experience, and the longer you look, the more you discover to see. Although many depict —or refer to—landscapes, the heavy application of paint creates new topographies: tsunamis, Alpine peaks, and meandering rivers, all in paint. It is both a thrill and a bit of a shock to realize that the process of really seeing one of these paintings might never end. Thus, it is a pleasure to include a series of Ying’s works on paper in this show, to provide a visual respite, but also to help us see her work more clearly by isolating elements that appear in the oil-painted

Left:

Cranberry Island #1 2018, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Cranberry Island #2 2018, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Right:

Pula, Croatia #1 2019, mixed media on paper, 6 x 12 in.

heavyweights. In her works on canvas, Ying luxuriates in paint, but her works on paper demonstrate an economic side to her artistry. In “Francavilla Al Mare #5” she plays heterogenous marks against each other, creating an intense impression of suspended action using only a handful of strokes. The paper pierces through between colors like whitecaps on waves: in Ying’s tumbling composition, we can clearly see the glimmer and dance of the Adriatic. Because the compositions tend to be simpler—with “Napoyca (Amelia Island FL) #1” as a notable exception—Ying’s works on paper offer a delicious opportunity to see her calligraphic dexterity, not just as an artistic tool in her considerable toolkit, but at play in a medium that is more recognizably Chinese. In some of these works, particularly “Castelo de São Jorge, Lisbon” and “Pula, Croatia #1,” there are marks that resemble Chinese characters embedded in the scenes. They register to the viewer like fragments of memory, conjured haphazardly by the view before her.

One final word about the show’s title, Traveling Light. First, it is a paean to the nature of light across landscapes, particularly as depicted by Ying— capricious, ever-changing, ever-new. Second, it speaks to an important element in Ying’s artistic practice. The keen observer will have noted that Ying doesn’t seem to stay in one place for long. She is a seasoned traveler, participating in residencies across Europe and America, and accompanying her partner, jazz trombonist Conrad Herwig, when his band goes on tour. Just while preparing for this show, she spoke to me from six different countries in Europe, painting everywhere she visited. Like many plein air painters, Ying has become adept at bringing still-wet paintings across international borders, having developed her own secret strategies for packing and transportation. One would hardly call flying with wet oil paintings, some of which weigh as much as fifty pounds, traveling light. Ying travels light in another, deeper sense. Through her work, she approaches each place, each environment, with an almost radical

Left:

Napoyca (Amelia Island, FL) #1 2023, mixed media on paper, 12 x 32 in.

Right:

Francavilla Al Mare #5 2022, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

curiosity and responsiveness. As Jennifer Samet points out in her essay in this catalogue, freedom of movement, and of expression, came to Ying only after her time spent in China during the Cultural Revolution, when she became all too familiar with its opposite. The works in this show—indeed, all of Ying’s paintings—glow with a simmering delight in these freedoms. In Ying’s compositions, one can perceive her training in Chinese art and her appreciation for the great Western artists like Soutine and de Kooning, but even more apparent is her joyful sense of liberty and sheer love of paint. With Such winds at her back, Ying can, and does, travel light.

The Dragon Fruit for Chairman Mao 2021, oil on linen, 24 x 18 in.

Hard Looking: The paintings of Ying Li Jennifer Samet Ying Li tells a story. She is working on a painting outdoors at the Chautauqua Institution. As she sits painting and looking at the Chautauqua Lake, a couple of girls move closer to her, looking over her shoulder and following Li’s gaze towards the water. They seemed curious, and also asking for attention: chattering and even dancing around her. Finally, one of the girls asks what she is doing. Li responds, “I am painting that boat,” pointing at a ferry. The girl looks back and forth at the painting and the ferry, making a confused expression. “But I don’t see a boat in the painting!” she finally protests. Unfazed, Li responds, “You need to look harder!” Li’s paintings ask us to look harder. They are landscapes and still lives, painted en plein air—on-site and through sustained observation of the subject. And yet, the finished paintings don’t identify their subjects in any easily digestible, recognizable way. They are

unabashed thickets and layers of impasto oil paint, ecstatic celebrations of color and pigment, and can weigh as much as fifty pounds. Her marks alternate between broad brushstrokes and sinuous lines squeezed directly from the tube, and they could easily be read as all-over abstractions. For this reason, Yi is often discussed in relation to New York School abstraction. Her project is certainly similar to the one espoused by Hans Hofmann, who believed in finding abstraction (space and color relations) through the process of looking and drawing from life. But Li’s work cannot be read in a vacuum outside of her own complex identity and background, and simply in terms of the legacy of New York School abstraction. For Li, the copious use of oil color, the freedom to move beyond prescribed subject matter and faithful depictions, and the ability to travel around the world in search of place, was hard-won. Li’s paintings demand that as viewers, we all—like the young girl— look closely, squint, and search for the pond, the trees, the flowers or fruit. And like the dancing girl, Li’s paintings don’t sit quietly and comfortably. They can leave us on unsteady ground, and we get the sense that Li derives a playful pleasure from leaving us there. In an interview, Li gleefully admitted she was “playing tricks on the viewer.” As a person, Li is intensely energetic, nimble and quick, and she also has a whimsical sense of humor. “It’s paint; it’s play,” Li says. This energy is transmitted in her painting. She has cited the Chinese artist and writer Xie He (of the Liu Song and Southern Qi dynasties), who is known for defining six principles of Chinese painting. The first one, which Li highlights as the most important element, is Spirit Resonance or vitality. It is about the nervous energy transmitted from the artist to the work through the brush. In considering spirit resonance, Li locates connections across the diverse centuries and continents which inform her. She considers the work of 17th-century/early Qing dynasty Chinese “individualist”

Imaginary Dinner with my Father 2022, oil on linen, 36 x 36 in.

Napoyca, Moon Rising 2023, mixed media on paper, 11 x 14 in.

painter Shitao alongside the “Ribbon” paintings of Brice Marden. In Shitao’s album leaf painting “Man in a House Beneath a Cliff,” Li admires how the painter overlaps brushstrokes and water to convey the dampness of the landscape. I also think about how the man, and the house, are subsumed by the brushwork delineating the cliff. We have to search for the human presence in the painting, just like we search for our bearings in Li’s work. Li did not always cite and admire Chinese painting. She jokes that, for decades, she thought Chinese painting had “no action, no color, and was like painting with soy sauce.” It was only after some time and distance that she began to embrace the history of Chinese painting. Born in Beijing, China, in 1951, Li and her family were victims of the oppressive Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong. Her father, a university professor of Russian literature, was accused of antigovernmental activity, arrested one night, and sent to a labor camp. Li, then a young teen, would not see him for ten years. Li herself was sent to the countryside to work on a farm. Her life became miserable: laboring in mountain villages, she broke her leg and never received proper medical care. Artmaking was her refuge; she had always drawn and doodled as a kid. She was asked, occasionally, to create Communist propaganda art: paintings and murals copied from specific sources. The days making art were a happy respite from labor and physical pain. In 1974, when the schools reopened, Li was determined to study art. She continued to be blacklisted at schools because of her father’s intellectual past, but one professor, after observing her paint, pushed for her admission. She spent 1974-77 at Anhui Normal University, and upon graduation, was assigned to continue on as a teacher. It was a requirement to study calligraphy, although her area of concentration was Western oil painting. At the time, this meant Soviet-style realism.

While teaching in Anhui province, Li met her future husband, Michael Gasster, a scholar of modern Chinese history. They met atop Yellow Mountain, where Li was painting. After a lengthy process involving governmental procedures, Li was able to marry Gasster and immigrate to the United States. She describes her entry into New York City as a formative aesthetic experience. She was struck by the lights of the city at night, and her first day in New York was spent at the Museum of Modern Art, taking in Bonnard, Giacometti, and Cézanne. That night, she heard South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) play at Sweet Basil in Greenwich Village. She describes that these first days felt like a door opening and granting her permission. The ecstatic use of color and pigment, and Li’s rejection of easilyread representation and messaging make sense in the context of her early life. She was separated from her father, exiled from her home city, taught that the purpose of art was to serve the government, and deprived of oil paint and color. In New York, she attended Parsons School of Design with a trio of strong-minded teachers (who themselves rejected dominant art world trends): Leland Bell, Paul Resika, and John Heliker. Bell taught through energetic transmission of his enthusiasm for art history: opening students’ eyes to the rhythms of compositional organization in paintings through history, and connecting it to jazz music. This likely had a profound effect on Li. Li’s paintings often have a lively syncopation and drum beat. Her painting “March of the Daffodils,” 2020, explores repetition and variety. The flowers are marching at an upward diagonal from left to right, the ground is stacked with horizontal swipes, while the rest of the painting is marked by a variety of different directional gestures.

March of the Daffodils 2020, oil on linen, 24 x 18 in.

Love Nest 2020, oil on linen, 30 x 26 in.

Pond 2022, oil on linen, 30 x 70 in.

In the Spring of 2020, when Li made this painting, she was locked down on the campus of Haverford College, where she has taught since 1997, and is currently Phlyssa Koshland Professor of Fine Arts. Despite the terrible backdrop of the pandemic, it was a time of great productivity for many artists, who often thrive with uninterrupted time to work. Li was able to make large paintings, carrying the canvases and setting up outside on the deserted campus. She recalls that the only beings around were foxes, deer, and rabbits. Nature seemed to burst with energy without human interference. She was able to live in the moment, just painting, and feeling an urgency to be connected. However, I consider how this time was also filled with Anti-Asian sentiment: hate crimes escalated, perpetuated by conspiracy theories that the Chinese government was responsible for the origin and transmission of the Covid virus. “Love Nest,” also 2020, seems to explore some of

the energies of this time: a protected nest-like concentration of marks at the center, with swirling forms circling it: deep reds and purples. It also reminds me of how Li speaks of the work of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin: how he often incorporates a single dot of red that feels almost violent but allows the other values in his painting to sing together. Relationship to place is a fundamental aspect of Li’s work. She travels across the world, working outdoors in Portugal, Sicily, Ireland, the Swiss Alps, and Telluride, Colorado, to name just a few. She thrives on the experience that being in a new and different place sharpens one’s perception. Her paintings don’t rest easily in recognition because she is more focused on the three-way interaction and conversation between painting, the landscape, and oneself—the mindstate of the artist in relation to place. Although she might begin to paint by mapping out the space, the weather changes, the light changes, and she sees herself as immersed in the landscape, not separate from it. In this, as well, she relates to the philosophy behind much of Chinese landscape painting: people and nature as one. Li’s painting “Pond,” is a 70-inch wide horizontal diptych. On top of the thick paint layers, it is structured throughout with sinuous, looping lines of paint, squeezed directly from the tube. At the right these lines appear to delineate trees and branches, arching over the pond. At the left, more rounded lines suggest orange-red bushes. The pond is likely the yellowish and gray blue area at the left-center, also teeming with activity and shorter line-dashes. One mark stands apart from the rest: a turquoise roundish paint mark. Although I cannot decipher exactly what it represents in the landscape, it does seem to indicate the place where sky, pond, and trees come together. Maybe it symbolizes the artist’s presence: completely immersed in this very-much-alive landscape. “Waterfall,” 2020-23, also a large scale (8-foot-wide) diptych, is characterized by a very different type of mark-making. Li added the paint

Waterfall

2020-23, oil on linen, 60 x 96 in.

Poetree #2 2022, oil on linen, 36 x 36 in.

using a fan-like motion of the brush so that the marks pulsate and vibrate. Colors bleed into one another, creating moiré patterns and rainbow effects. While it is hard to point to the exact representation of the waterfall, the whole painting becomes the experience of the waterfall: the gushing water, the patterns it makes as it falls against rocks, the sunlight reflected and creating rainbows across its surfaces. Li admires the work, and wit, of 18th-century Chinese individualist painter Luo Ping, known as one of the Yangzhou Eccentrics. Luo Ping was known for scrolls on which he painted ghosts that he claimed to have seen. I think of this as I struggle to decipher Li’s painting “Poetree.” Ultimately, I see its vertical division as the two components of the cheeky title. The left side is the literary, with its squiggly lines of paint, and the right side is the trunk of the tree: with wide swipes of turquoise and yellow creating a bark-like texture. It represents the contrast between the monumentality and solidity of nature: the mountain, the cliff-side, the steady tree, and the ever-shifting energies that also map and define our lives. Li’s paintings are not a comfortable refuge; like poems, they dance and move, play and trick.

Jennifer Samet is a New York City-based art historian, curator, and writer.

Left:

Towards the Alps #1 2016, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Towards the Alps #2 2016, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Right:

Castelo de São Jorge, Lisbon 2023, mixed media on paper, 14 x 11 in.

Left:

Fountain of Solar de Castelo, Lisbon 2023, mixed media on paper, 12 x 9 in.

Right:

Guimarães, Portugal 2018, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Pirin, Bulgaria 2019, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Francavilla Al Mare, Italy 2022, watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Tabby Cabins, Kingsley Plantation, FL #2 2022, mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.

Ying Li, an American painter and art educator, was born in Beijing, China and immigrated to the United States in 1983. She is the Phlyssa Koshland Professor of Fine Arts at Haverford College. Li received her from BFA in 1977 from Anhui Normal University, China, and MFA in 1987 from Parsons School of Design. She currently lives and works in New York City and Haverford, PA Li’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including internationally at Centro Incontri Umani Ascona (Switzerland), ISA Gallery (Italy), Enterprise Gallery (Ireland) and Museum of Rochefort-en-Terre (France); and in New York City at The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The National Academy of Design Museum, Lohin Geduld Gallery, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Lori Bookstein Fine Art; as well as at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), James Michener Museum (Doylestown, PA), Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College (Haverford, PA), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Valley House and Sculpture Garden (Dallas, TX), Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) and Hood Museum at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire). Among her awards are: The Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize for Painting and Henry Ward Ranger Fund Purchase Award, both from The National Academy Museum; Donald Jay Gordon Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Swarthmore College; Artist-inResidence, Dartmouth College; McMillan Stewart Visiting Critic, Maryland Institute College of Art; Ruth Mayo Distinguished Visiting Artist, The University of Tulsa; Frances Niederer Artist in Residence, Hollins University; and Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome. She is the recipient of various Residential Fellowships in Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, Canada and France. Li’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, Art in America, The New York Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, Artcritical and Hyperallergic, among other publications.

Deepest thanks to: Alice Gauvin, Jennifer Samet, John Goodrich, Conrad Herwig, Ron Milewicz, Susan Jane Walp and Charles Dean. My profound gratitude also to Haverford College and the Phlyssa Koshland Professorship Fund. —YL

Back cover:

Waterfall (detail) 2020-23, oil on linen, 60 x 96 in.

NEW ART DEALERS ALLIANCE

311 East Broadway | New York, New York 10002