CHEN LI is a master woodblock printmaker and painter whose work is collected by The British Museum as an exceptional example of Modern Chinese art. After a turbulent youth he goes deep inside himself to find the peace, lightness and joy that permeate his works. “I paint what I feel in my heart. For this I have to face my past, both successes and failures."

Chen Li defines his practice as a constant transformation. His trademark flying strokes, the originality and dynamism of his compositions, and the brilliant interplay of colours and textures that find a harmony in both movement and stillness - all of these echo the freedom of his thoughts.

Always marching to the tune of his own drum, he is inspired by the spectacular landscapes and the Buddhist philosophy of China’s southwestern Yunnan Province where he lives and works. Stylistically, he is equally inspired by the works of Bruegel and de Kooning as of Guan Xiu and Zhao Wu-ji, weaving East and West into an original and harmonious visual language.

“Chinese art and Western art have different views about reality. But when I paint, I ignore both man-made and natural rules to create living artistic images. I paint to finish my idea, my hope.”

For his woodblock prints, Chen Li works in a rare jueban or “waste-block” technique. Historians are not sure where the technique originated, but it was perfected in Yunnan. Unlike Japanese woodblock printing where a different woodblock is used for each colour, here all colours are printed off a single woodblock, each step carving over the previous one until the woodblock itself is destroyed. The technique leaves no room for error and only a single limited edition can ever be printed because the process cannot be repeated. In addition, the resulting prints have a painting-like texture because the method calls for thick, oil-based inks.

Chen Li (b. 1971, Yunnan Province, China), is widely exhibited and collected internationally, with woodblock prints in the permanent collection of The British Museum and the Clifford Chance Print Collection.