Author: LI JIKAI 李继开

Size: 145×185cm

Signed and dated: Painted in 2004

Estimate: 300,000 -400,000

Final Price: RMB 300,000

LITERATURE
2005 Next stop: Cartoon/ P72-73 / China Water Resources and Hydropower Press & Intellectual Property Press
2007 Li Jikai / P106-107/ Shanghai People's Art Publishing House
2008 Small world: Li Jikai / Plate P22 / Season Gallery
2008 Walking Alone Paintings by Li Jikai / P35/ Canvas International Art
2008 Broken wood forest works of Li Jikai / P10 / Art LITERATURE Art Center
signed in Pinyin and dated 2004
EXHIBITED
2004 Next stop: cartoon? Art after 70 starGallery, Beijing
2007 Empty- Li Jikai Solo Exhibition Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai
2008 The Second Stop of Empty-Li Jikai's Solo Exhibition Today Art Museum, Beijing
2008 Small World: Paintings by Li Jikai Season Gallery, Switzerland
2008 Walking alone Canvas International Art, Amsterdam

For Post-70s artists, the confusion, loneliness and discomfort brought by the social upheaval at the end of the 20th century are the most profound experience of this generation. Therefore, Li Jikai combines his inner entanglement, doubt and sadness with the contemporary popular cartoon style, and allow his creation to have the characteristics of 'new painting' with surreal image narration, poetic expression and metaphor. On the one hand, Li Jikai's art continues the creative tradition of his contemporaries who pay attention to personal experience and emotional core. On the other hand, it also expands the context and narrative space of contemporary art, and constructs a new painting order with fictional grand scenes.
In Li Jikai's creation, 'little boy' can be described as his symbol. These various children's images are not only his self portrait, but also his spokesman in different situations. The Desktop series created in 2004 is more metaphorical than the early works. The artist puts the whole world on a desktop, and then regenerates and sends out various stories, which reflects the absurdity of reality. In The world exists because of you (Lot 1084), the globe on the desktop, two migrating pandas, and a tree growing out of thin air seem to imply the coexistence between China and the world. A little boy sat on the gift box, his eyes closed expressionless, as if he feels indifferent to the world; Another little boy came down from the sky with lightning and couldn't wait to integrate into the world. This dynamic and static contrast seemed to announce two completely different attitudes towards life, namely, 'entering the world' and 'being born', which contained deep meaning in absurdity.