Li Jin

signed LI JIN, dated 2007, and with one seal of the artist on each panel

United Kingdom, London, Saatchi Gallery, Ink: The Art of China, 19 June - 5 July, 2012, p. 128

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, pp. 180-181

Overall in good condition. Hanging scroll size: 237 x 55 cm; 93 1/4 x 21 5/8 in. each
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Li Jin's paintings draw inspiration from his vast reservoir of cultural phenomenon observed by an indiscriminate mind. Feast (LOT 506) is a five paneled work created by the artist as a remembrance of his travels and life experience. “This work is very representative of my painting approach and encompasses all of my ideas with a sense of nostalgia for the past…[herein] there are two kinds of nostalgia, one for Europe and the other for China.”¹

Prior to this time Li Jin traveled extensively in Europe. The clothing styles are reminiscent of his trip in Germany, including figures donning Alpine felt hats, opera players and women in laced bodices and full skirts like Bavarian folk dancers, as well as memories from China, including dancing figures from the Red Women’s Army, Lenin-style suits and padded mandarin tunics worn during cold winters. The universality of the human figure is as common as the human need for food, thus this is a truth in art and life depicted by Li Jin's painting. The dancers are symbols of artistic liberty, whose movements echo the freedom with which the artist includes his subjects, such as food and creatures. In each panel, the rosy-cheeked artist himself is surrounded by a copious amount of banquet delights, including chargrilled meat and vegetables on sticks, fresh seafood, and festive drinks. He often remarks, “It is easy to use myself as subject, it's what I know best…When I'm painting food, it's as if I'm eating a feast too. I can taste it, smell it.” Filled with such humour and compassion, there is closeness between the artist and his food that comes alive for any viewer of his paintings.

Li Jin was born in 1958 and trained at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in China.  He is currently the Deputy Professor of traditional Chinese painting at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.  For Li Jin, life and art are one.  His diaristic revelations of flesh and appetite with delicate brush and palette embrace the pleasures of food, friends, family and the foibles of our shared humanity.  The artist often praises the simplicity of life, provoking humour while he is struggling with brush and ink to balance the demands of a virtuous life and the allure of sensual pleasures.  Li Jin’s paintings of the sensual pleasures of daily life are in the permanent collections of the National Art Museum of China; Hong Kong Museum of Art; Guangdong Museum of Art; Seattle Art Museum; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; University of California Berkeley Art Museum; University of California Los Angeles Hammer Museum; and the University of Washington Museum of Fine Arts.

¹ Interview with Li Jin, December 2015