Landscapes of Li Huayi
(May 1997)
This exhibition follows “Backward Glances,” the paintings of Arnold Chang, and “C.C. Wang at Ninety” as the third show organized by Kaikodo around the work of a single artist. Despite the great differences in their ages and the widely varying circumstances of their artistic training and careers, all three of these painters are explicitly Chinese artists; they have, that is, consciously chosen to place themselves in some specific relationship to the long lineage of Chinese masters who preceded them, to assimilate the stylistic heritage associated with that particular segment, and to project their chosen lineage into the future through paintings of their own creation. We celebrate in this exhibition Li Huayi’s commitment to the great landscape masters of the Northern Song period and to the awe-inspiring natural landscapes of the northern California coast that has long been close to home for him, and also we celebrate the Li’s inner artistic lights that compel him to rewrite the past and create the present in his own language and unique personal idiom.
