Solo exhibition: See and Gain

Description

Studio Gallery is delight to present Li Jiaqi's fourth gallery solo exhibition, See and Gain. In this exhibition, the featured works extended Li’s signature application of vibrant palette, and his whimsical and ingenious collage method, further expanding his distinctive visual lexicon. Li’s practice playfully appropriates pop culture symbols, while embedding his personal reflections on reality and illusion into broader cultural references. In this presentation, he focuses on the new themes of “mirroring” and “duality,” merging these concepts with pop imagery—such as American comic superheroes and the Evil Queen from “Snow White”—through a witty, irreverent lens. Through his boundless exploration of visuality and imagery, Li has emerged as one of the most dynamic artists of his generation. In 2024, he gained recognition through exhibitions at Studio Gallery and the West Bund Art Fair, where he presented a series of princess- and prince-themed paintings inspired by Disney animations. These works blend fictional characters with real-life figures and readymade materials. Over the past year, Li has drawn on trompe-l'œil techniques to investigate the interplay between reality, virtuality, simulacra, reflection, and appearance, populating his richly colored canvases with unexpected visual juxtapositions of diverse characters.

Li’s compositions fuse the aesthetics of early-2000s internet culture, graphic design, and 2D comics, aligning with the post-internet art movement while reflecting influences from artists such as Julio Larraz and Michel Majerus. The exhibition’s title, See and Gain, echoes the slogans or disclaimers that flank commercial advertisements. It alludes to Li’s fascination with the dissonance between perception and reality, while signaling his deeper interrogation of visual culture itself.


In many of the works featured in this exhibition, “dual faces” appear simultaneously—for example, an angel strumming an angel-shaped electric guitar, Superman shaving his beard with a laser while gazing into a mirror, or Narcissus kissing his own reflection in water. Li Jiaqi’s exploration knows no bounds, spanning eras, cultures, and inspirations drawn from film, gaming, and literature, as he persistently questions: What truth does the retina perceive? Can images substitute for reality? Does reality even matter?

Across numerous works, Li demonstrates meticulous realism. Influenced by the vibrant hues of advertising, his precise color pairings imbue his paintings with a distinctly dynamic aesthetic. In works such as Nada Had To Choose (2025), Picasso’s Bread Hand Illusion (2025), and The Principle of Symmetry (2025), he experiments with rendering skin tones using transparent pigments like “Indian Yellow Hue” and “Transparent Red Iron Oxide.” He also boldly incorporates readymade objects and mixed materials directly onto the canvas—an approach informed both by his experience with sculpture and found objects, and his desire to introduce a “third dimension” to the traditionally flat surface of painting. Alongside his painting practice, Li has sustained an eight-year academic inquiry into printed imagery, urban advertising installations, and visual culture. This research has resulted in projects such as the video essay Effective Ineffectiveness: Facts About Space Collage (2020), the journal article Research of Social Visual Phenomenon: Space Collage (2022), and a university seminar presentation titled Printed Trompe-l'œil: Urban Visual Tricks (2025). These works reflect his ongoing investigation into how visual illusions and collages manipulate perception in both artistic and public spaces.

Period	13 Jul 2025 → 23 Aug 2025
Event type	Exhibition
Location	Shanghai, ChinaShow on map