| Recently, I made some pieces for the Son of Heaven series and the Memory series. Son of Heaven is a series of some colored eggs. Memory is a series of oil paintings where the subjects are black-and-white photographs from my childhood. These works chronologically echo my previous pieces. In my work, the bird is a symbol of life. From bird nests and taxidermy, to bones and fossils, it is a circle of life. But for people who understand my work, I paint a false version of the circle of life, because I use broken eggs and bird specimens as subjects. I put them in a box, padded with cotton and cloth, then label them. These artificial factors contribute to the idea of “false reincarnation,” which I want to present. However, after a cycle of painting reincarnation, I decided to end it. |  |
Li Rui
Recently, I made some pieces for the Son of Heaven series and the Memory series. Son of Heaven is a series of some colored eggs. Memory is a series of oil paintings where the subjects are black-and-white photographs from my childhood. These works chronologically echo my previous pieces.
In my work, the bird is a symbol of life. From bird nests and taxidermy, to bones and fossils, it is a circle of life. But for people who understand my work, I paint a false version of the circle of life, because I use broken eggs and bird specimens as subjects. I put them in a box, padded with cotton and cloth, then label them. These artificial factors contribute to the idea of “false reincarnation,” which I want to present.
However, after a cycle of painting reincarnation, I decided to end it. I made some new pieces for Son of Heaven, where I used colors and forwent broken eggs. In this way, I express myself and bring an illusion of hope. The Memory series is a projection of my own memory. I portray the life of birds, especially owls, which I like so much, because this animal has a kind of mysterious aura about it. With this turn to memory of real life, I have abandoned the concept of “false reincarnation,” and my work transforms from cold to warm.
