Nostalgia

Li Shuang born in Beijing in 1957, now living and working in Paris, has been exhibiting widely since the early 1980s. With solo and group exhibitions all over Asia, Europe and America, Li has become one of the more widely known Contemporary Chinese painters. Having been brought up during the Cultural Revolution, she was heavily influenced by the ten year period of stringency, thought control and forced revolutionary fervor. She rebelled in both her art and life, and was imprisoned in the Liang Xiang prison camp for two years accused of “hooliganism” and “offending the dignity of the country” when she requested permission to marry a French diplomat based in China. After serving a two-year “re-education” sentence, Li moved to Paris, where she remains today.

While her paintings do not reflect anger or political suppression, her subjects, often women, do possess a robust sense of strength and tranquility, balance and serenity; and a quiet complexity. Li typically incorporates traditional still life objects such as vases, fruits and blossoms amongst her figures; however, it is her particular salient style and use of rich and luxurious colour, which lend her paintings a striking and sumptuous feel.