“TRAUMTHEATER“ / “THEATER OF DREAMS“ will be Patrick Li‘s first solo exhibition at gallery twenty-six, showcasing a spectacular selection of women‘s portraits in oil or acrylic on canvas by the Shanghai-born painter, visual artist, poet, theater maker and stage designer.
Opening on November 30th 2023, what really constitutes the unique substantial feature of this exhibition, is the particular fascination, the special allure of gradually uncovering, unveiling, exposing of what is still lurking within the complex visual layerings, waiting to be discovered: As if pulling away the blanket, underneath which the beholders might have preferred to get cosy, painting these portraits Patrick Li made the decision to bring fragments of reality back to the dream world of painting until the hackneyed samplings from the subconscious visual overload dissipated, playing with the doubled exchange of glances between the psychological and artistic conceptions of “reality”, investigating insidiously but relentlessly in order to get to the bottom of things.
The portraits of women shown get under your skin: their beauty, dignity and elegance impress in a different way than we are generally used to: something about these pictures seems to have fallen out of time, refusing to be visually grasped too quickly.
These are utterly sophisticated mood pictures – soul poems: the poetry of strong emotions gains strength through the luminosity of the palette and the heightened sensuality and symbolism of the images, a pursuit of the heartfelt and the truth, which at the same time suggests a momentary lack of inhibition, an instinctual desire to just dive right into the sphere of the subconscious, the unabashed, the unknown – watching minutely, everything, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, to simply confront whatever there may be.
“I prefer to paint from my dreams – the subject matter which is intangible and most difficult.”
“The figures on my canvases are my actors!”
The artist’s preoccupation with dream fragments initially led to small-format analog collage works, which would ultimately form the image compositional and iconographic basis of most of the portraits on display.
However, this does not apply to one of the works, as it is based on Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Daydream”.
Even as a child, Li was highly fascinated by this particular painting, contemplated it for hours and later became deeply interested in the Pre-Raphaelites and their significance for art history.
The fact that their muses revolutionized the ideal of female beauty, just as their paintings revolutionized image composition, detail and realism, undoubtedly created new space for imagination, fascination, inspiration and opportunity. But there is much more:
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood overturned centuries of dogma, shedding hollow formalisms, conventions and conservatisms in art.
It was strongly concerned with the role of women in society, or rather its darker side, thus addressing particular contemporary social issues.
Last but not least, both, Li as well as Rosetti, are both painters and poets, being completely and utterly infused by poetry, consequently the idea of creating an image which is both a visual image and a poetic image, all in one together, became a natural course for them, constructing images that would reflect their respective poetic ideas.
Hence, every detail of the image composition and iconography of every painting has some kind of meaning – not just the figure of the potrayed individual herself – telling us about the nature of the depicted woman, her character, her soul, her passions, her longings.
Patrick Li`s art is an expression of sensuality, which he himself describes as “Dream Pop”.
By consciously choosing this term (which refers to a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychodelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody and came into prominence in the 1980s through the work of groups such as the Cocteau Twins), thus specifically invoking a music-historical sphere of reference, the artist manages to spawn unexpected fields of tension between the visual and the auditory.
Li prefers strong, trendy colours, pitching contrasting ones against each other in his pieces of work, as well as geometric shapes; his paintings very intentionally appear to be located between space and time. They form a synthesis of reality and fantasy, grant the viewers an insight into a dream world and allow them to reflect upon their own existence.
“THEATER OF DREAMS“ stages and celebrates the vitality and beauty of the feminine, the conundrums of the unconscious, the mesmerizing momentum of amazement and the stunning space of possibility in an astonishing, unique manner.
Winter Norden Erde
Frühling Osten Luft
Wenn ich ein Theater wäre, würdest Du kommen, um das Stück anzusehen?
Ich freue mich, wenn ich Dich sehe
Im Mondlicht
Jake & Daniel
Ewan & Daniel
Portrait
