“For Li Jin, there is nothing more authentic or natural than satisfying one’s appetites – whether it be for a table laden with mouth-watering dishes, or the curvy, sexy women who stare vacantly from his pictures.”

Li Jin

John McDonald

Li Jin (b.1958) is one of the most acclaimed living Chinese artists.

One of the keys to Li Jin’s attitude to life is that he uses himself as a character in so many of his ink and watercolour paintings. We see him as amorous, drunk, gluttonous and bewildered; wide-eyed with stupefaction, or dressed in some absurd costume. We realise that all of these personas are contained within one human being, and that each of us harbours the same capacity for multiplicity.

The artist’s self-deprecating humour should not lead us to assume that his work is frivolous or ephemeral. As a painter, Li Jin is skilled in age-old styles known as xieyi (ink wash), and gongbi (fine line brushwork). The latter is associated with an exacting realism, the former is more subjective and distorted. His distinctive style of ink painting became a way of circumventing the demand for grand statements. As avant- gardists made inflated gestures in the name of political and creative freedom, Li Jin’s work remained intimate in nature and often small-scale.

For Li Jin, there is nothing more authentic or natural than satisfying one’s appetites – whether it be for a table laden with mouth-watering dishes, or the curvy, sexy women who stare vacantly from his pictures. If there is a moral to be gleaned from his work, it is to be true to oneself, regardless of all the pressures to conform to social, religious, political and cultural norms.