Li Hei Di: Green snake at the bottom of the pond
Text/Li Yangyang
Freud believed that human instinctive impulses come from subconscious desires, and that art and dreams are the products of transferred desires. In "Green Snake" (1993) directed by Tsui Hark, the use of color and scenery adds a avant-garde aesthetic to this erotic story: the lotus pond transformed by the white snake is often shrouded in mist; when the green snake appears in the pond, When he revealed his true form, all the lotus flowers in the pond flashed with faint will-o'-the-wisps. In this series of paintings by Li Hei Di, aquatic plants, human limbs and organs, foam, and pearls are all immersed and swaying in this pool of orange, yellow, blue and green water. Standing in front of the shimmering and mysterious paintings, one feels as if one is in a traditional Chinese medicine shop. Facing medicinal wine jars filled with various terrifying and rare animals and plants, one cannot help but wonder whether there is a person imprisoned in these jars. Different world. These water scenes do not contain overt sexual expressions, but are full of the artist's emotions and desires.
Li Hei Di likes to seek inspiration from old Hong Kong movies from the 1980s and 1990s, and keeps a collage full of movie stills. In its first exhibition with Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles, this series of paintings is inspired by the movie "Green Snake", which changes the legend of the two snakes. The colors in the painting also continue the tones in Tsui Hark's movies: large areas of pure and bright blue, red, and yellow are presented around the characters and on their faces in the form of scenery or lighting, creating a very tempting and dangerous atmosphere. visual experience. For example, in "Adulterated Wind & Unmowed Grass" and "The Unforeseen Flooding the Abyss", large areas of blue and green seem to overflow the canvas. These blues and greens are brighter than the traditional ultramarine or official green in Chinese paintings, and the artificiality of this color hints at unsettling crises and contradictions.
The relationship between Li Hei Di's creation and film does not stop at the inheritance of tones, but penetrates into the intertextuality and its core. Li Hei Di adopts the same perspective as "Green Snake" and focuses on the green snake, a supporting role in the traditional narrative. In the movie, Green Snake is the subtle third party in the heterosexual relationship between White Snake and Xu Xian. She is intimate with White Snake and entangles with Fa Hai. She is always full of desire for lust, but does not get caught up in it. Like many other female characters in Hong Kong films during the golden age of the last century, Green Snake is a subtle feminist image in Li Hei Di's understanding: she is active rather than passive, resists tradition but is not outspoken, and seems to Stay outside the binary gender framework.
Li Hei Di's paintings are similarly full of contradictions: full of temptation but with restraint and restraint, and do not show off this power. Underneath the layers of leaves, stems and limbs, there is obviously secret energy lurking. Flowers, pearls, hands shaped like the handprints of Buddha statues, these still lifes with traditional Chinese colors are interspersed among the dynamic water waves. There are also some sleeping bodies, as if it is no longer possible to identify whether they are alive or dead, human or demon, male or female. Occasionally, a hand or a foot is entangled with the leaves and stems of aquatic plants. In Li Hei Di's works, these images are just infinite possibilities, like fairies that have just taken human form - as the artist mentioned in an interview, "there is no rush to become someone." During the viewing, these seemingly peaceful elements have become a larger whole, with its own desires and motivations clearly revealed. The translucent water waves make the picture full of fluidity, as if these elements are eternally in some kind of active or passive movement, which is also the best embodiment of ambiguity. They appear to be a series of broken human organs, ambiguous and almost indistinguishable. We don’t know how many hidden conflicts and pains are hidden in the depths of this pool of canvas.
In images rich in multiple visual layers, the senses caused by visual ambiguity extend to narrative illusions. Li Hei Di uses the interplay of picture and language to create a narrative that is almost a film medium, in which there are always hidden emotions, experiences and characters. In this way, the artist explores alternative possibilities and non-traditional expressions of sexual existence - as an outsider, Green Snake chooses to leave the human world at the end of the film, looks directly into the camera and speaks this monologue: "You say there is love in the world, but what is love? ? It’s so ridiculous, you don’t even know it yourself. When you figure it out, maybe I will come back again.” Based on the classic narrative question of “Being human is the only way to be sentimental”, Li Hei Di’s paintings and Tsui Hark’s films Likewise, explore out-of-frame and undefined possibilities in secondary characters and marginalized identities. The image in the painting refuses any formal iconographic interpretation, and presents a flowing narrative that invites layer upon layer of exploration and infinite reverie, just like "Green Snake" or "The Smiling Proud East is Undefeated" (1992), We see gender-ambiguous images in screen narratives such as M. Butterfly (1993).
The gallery owner told me that all the works in this solo exhibition were sold out early. As one of the hottest artists who has emerged in recent years when the "new generation of female abstract artists" trend has emerged, Li Hei Di's painting language and the emotions implicit in it are undoubtedly meaningful and unique. Li Hei Di's exploration of desire and sex can be traced: from the few small paintings exhibited at LINSEED "Idle People's Games" in Shanghai in 2020, we can see the authentic and wanton undercurrent, and then developed into the MAMOTH London , the visual language system of the large paintings displayed in the Hong Kong Gagosian group exhibition "Uncanny Valley: Flesh". "Desire" has also become the center of her recent creations, but it is not as straightforward as the artist's favorite Miriam Cahn (Miriam Cahn) who directly confronts sexual themes, but between different cultural elements, between senses and Between experiences, he can freely write implicit but powerful sexual hints. Among the new generation of Chinese artists, Li Hei Di opened up a space for dialogue about sex and sexual existence with this visual language of "still holding the pipa half-hidden".
In the gallery's large exhibition hall, the sunshine from Los Angeles reflected on the high walls in some mysterious way, creating water-wave-like textures that just illuminated the upper left corner of a painting. The female chorus "Life is Like This" rang in my ears: "Life is like this/Life is like this..."