Li Hanwei

CV

MadeIn Gallery will present Li Hanwei’s solo exhibition New Painting on September 4, 2022. This marks the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, featuring a series of new paintings.

Born in 1994, Li Hanwei is a founding member of the young artist collective Slime Engine, where he has continually grown and created alongside his peers. Living within digital media, they mutate the breath and consciousness of their generation amid multiple cultures and the fast-paced entanglement of the virtual and the real.

New Painting resembles a “blitz mission” that Li Hanwei assigns to painting. In this “mission,” Li plays multiple roles: painter, graffiti writer, Cinema4D user, tour guide, gestural drawer, script code editor, taste-breaker, and more. We are prompted to reconsider: What is painting? Where is the act of painting located in Li’s work? Why is such a way of painting both meaningful and courageous? What is remarkable is that Li has managed to capture, on the void of the screen, a logic that excites him and that he can further develop. Here, New Painting unfolds more like a navigation without an end point—inviting viewers to follow, to stay alert, and to traverse.