Chenglin Li

Chenglin Li is an installation, moving-image, and computational artist who has exhibited in major cities such as Paris, New York, Venice, London, and San Francisco. She has exhibited at Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice, Artexpo New York, Halle des Blancs Manteaux in Paris, Matera Casa Cava in Italy, Gallery NAT in London, and CICA Museum in South Korea. Chenglin’s honours include recognitions with the iF Design Award, Creative Communication Awards (C2A), International Design Awards (IDA), Grand Prix du Design Paris, London Design Awards, French Design Awards, MUSE Design Awards, and the European Product Design Award. 

Ranging from code-based digital abstractions and moving-images to 3-D printed forms integrated into installations to design-based installations, almost Chenglin Li’s entire portfolio is based on interdisciplinary practices with technology. Let us start first with her 3-D printed installations which are essentially costumes and masks. Some of these masks have forms similar to twigs off a dying tree or the scales of a mystical dragon. Others seem technologically-based similar to hyper-stylized versions of an N-95 respirator. These particular works are a conceptual statement on ecology and lack of sustainment of our environments. For example, imagine virus masks or gas masks becoming fashionable costume wears of the latest trend instead of a dress…In such a regard, these costumes have a post-apocalyptic commentary and aesthetic which are sometimes combined with dream-like moving-image projections in the background to accentuate the urban nihilism and despair of impending environmental disaster.

In Chenglin Li’s computational designs, we will find two-dimensional abstractions which have pixelized aesthetics. In these compositions, which are often meant to be displayed on digitized screens, we will find bright neon colors of hot pink, vivid magenta, and turquoise in conjunction with patterns and forms which seem like loosely-broken up pixels. As if we are experiencing electrical interference from an intense lightning storm, these hypnotic ‘distortions’ grace our screens with an aesthetic of digitized aesthetics. As a result, these pieces advance the purpose of abstraction beyond means of the brush or traditionally-recognized sculptural mediums. These unfamiliar compositions elicit dream-like sequences and avenues towards unfamiliarity in color composure and forms which reflect code-based tendencies.

Ocean Lung (pictured above) represents a costume based on nihilistic aesthetics, a post-ordered world where basic survival of breathing becomes essential on a planet littered with pollution, ecological fallout, and other forms of environmental chaos. In this chemically and biologically-disrupted world, we enter an installation of lucid experiences portraying the beautiful despair of endurance-based-connotations. In this imagined costume of our dystopian future, the viewer imagines themselves as a post-apocalyptic adventurer trekking the bleak wasteland. 

With technological practices and an integrative mindset to combine fields such as costume design, installation, digital art, moving-image, and projection-based visuals into visual substance of an immense open minded dimension, the interdisciplinary approach of Chenglin Li creates machinations based in concepts which foresee the future and alter our present realities. Her deeply complex approach to the visual arts leaves works which are ambitious in portraying a multi-faceted avenue of conceptually conveying the intricacies of the contemporary world. This complexity is duly noted in how she portrays figurative elements in conjunction with abstract qualities and screen-based backdrops which reveal a world in carefully orchestrated chaos. These design elements convey an approach which combines the collective strengths of various practices, such as projection, installation, and costume design into forms which have us question and ponder on individual experiences when shaped by technological applications.