Poetic Abstract

Lei Li

Sep 20, 2008 ~ Oct 7

Perhaps because of the edification of the life in the great desert of north-west which is full of poetic quality, Li-lei has another gift which is different from those the Shanghai native artists have. Li-lei spent his childhood without any sorrow and anxiety in the valley of Huang-shui, Qinghai Province, and the customs and influences handed down from the ancient civilization of Ma-jia Cave nourished his immature heart. It’s the primitive culture and the ancient legend of plateau which are straightforward, simple and unsophisticated, as well as mysterious that forms the significant childhood complex. The sense of vitality and the worship of the primeval ecology have been controlling potentially his thought and his creation. Many years ago, when Li-lei was a youth, he even went into the trumpet shell gorge (Hai-luo gou), Gong-ga snow-mountain, Sichuan Province lonely to experience the value of life in the situation of alone and with no help by breaking into depopulated zone in glacier gorge. Recalling this experience, he stated, “visiting trumpet shell gorge for me is not only a magnificent tour of life, but also a experience of soul cleansing…… Whenever the Gong-ga snow mountain appears in my dream, I would arise spontaneously endless joy, and I would make a consider quietly and serenely what’s the meaning of life……” Therefore, we can conclude that the plateau which is thousands miles away is the origin of Li-lei’s poetic abstract works which produced in the survival space of Shanghai metropolis. From the nature, Li-lei caught the direct experience of self-life, feel the willpower sprang out in his body, and found out his own art language and mode to express his thoughts freely.