Li Liang`s solo “Between Skin and Silence” is now open in our Shenzhen space
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Installation View
Li Liang: Between Skin and Silence
The Dragon Year
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Installation View
Li Liang: Between Skin and Silence
The Dragon Year
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In ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, Gabriel García Márquez writes that “Things have a life of their own. It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls,” an idea that quietly resonates throughout Li Liang’s paintings, where bodies, landscapes, flowers, and drifting surfaces seem to carry emotional and spiritual presence beyond their visible form. Working between figuration and abstraction, the contemporary Chinese artist creates atmospheric environments where memory, inner consciousness, and physical reality coexist without hierarchy. From 5th June to 5th August 2026, Shenzhen’s The Dragon Year presents ‘Between Skin and Silence’, a solo exhibition by contemporary Chinese artist Li Liang. Bringing together paintings created between 2021 and 2026.
Having graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2007 and then completed his Master’s degree in 2009, Li Liang developed a visual language that was technically precise yet deeply connected to emotional and conceptual storytelling. His paintings often showcase muted landscapes, blending in different elements such as flowers, moving colours, and solitary figures that seem more like present-day situations than fixed subjects. These scenes tend to reflect the dissolution of surrounding worlds. |
The Equality Of All Things 2022
Oil On Canvas 120×100 cm
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Li Ling’s paintings have a strong association with the notion of magical realism, which refers to the natural coexistence of emotions, spirituality, and physicality within an environment. His paintings, like some works of speculative literature and poetry, allow landscapes to have a psychological effect, with memory and atmosphere becoming tangible factors that can shape the visible world. Like some works of speculative literature and poetry, his paintings allow the landscapes to exert a psychological influence on the world around them. We can say that in his work, memory and atmosphere become tangible factors that shape the visible world.
His upcoming solo exhibition, which will feature 12 pieces created between 2021 and 2026,will demonstrate the gradual shift. A series of paintings that shift from recognisable figuration to more soft, diffused forms is showcased in the exhibition. Rather than portraying the body as something isolated or fixed, the works depict it as porous and constantly subject to external conditions. Li Ling exhibits a remarkable feature, highlighted by the persistent red line that resonates with viewers like an arrow. The artist’s line is connected to spiritual and emotional conditions, with associations of life, memory, instinct, and human experience. |
Mist and Waves Beat The Desk 2026
Oil On Canvas 120×100 cm
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What will make this exhibition particularly compelling is the way it approaches transformation without much spectacle itself. Moreover, through its delicate and almost concealed elements, the exhibition creates movement within restricted areas and subtly links different stages of transformation throughout the display. The paintings rarely rely on dramatic gestures or direct narrative. The paintings tell a story through their natural progression, as the body gradually blends into surface, colour, and surrounding space until it becomes present beyond fixed form, structured through three conceptual movements: containment, diffusion, and merging. The exhibition will follow a gradual shift from recognisable forms toward increasingly fluid and abstract states. ‘Between Skin and Silence’ offers an immersive look into Li Liang’s evolving visual language and stands as an exhibition that will quietly stay in the viewer’s mind, long after leaving the space. As Susanna Clarke writes in Piranesi, “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.” |
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The Grasp 2022
Oil On Canvas 100×80 cm
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Pervasion 2021
Oil On Canvas 120×100 cm
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The Equality Of All Things 2022
Oil On Canvas 120×100 cm
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Perseverance 2022
Oil On Canvas 80×100 cm
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Dancing With Fluttering Grace 2025
Oil On Canvas 50×60 cm
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Mist and Waves beat the desk 2026
Oil On Canvas 120×100 cm
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