LARRY

—Li

Larry Li (b. 1998 lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is a painter whose practice operates in a space of cultural contrast. Merging painting, drawing, collage, and other mediums to create works that visualize his inherited experiences and cultural identity. Li received his BFA from the University of Southern California, Roski School of Fine Arts (2020) and a 2022 MFA candidate from Otis College of Art and Design.

Q: Tell us about your practice

A: I describe my practice as a personal engagement with my own cultural amnesia. Hoping these objects get me closer to a sense of racial and cultural identity as a Chinese American that has to carry the complexities of a diasporic experience.

Q: Your practice spans a lot of mediums from painting to collage, ink and video.
Can you talk to us about your process a little — what determines the medium?

A: Much of my work is rooted in collage and they originate in a digital space. Whether that is sourcing materials from the internet or using illustrator to digitally collage images together. From there, it is a process of figuring out how the work can exist in the physical world. For me drawing, painting, and collage are what make the most sense to me, so much of my work will always be a combination of the three.

Q: You’ve spoken about how you source a lot of material from your family, even pulling them directly to help with some of your video works. How has it been bringing them into your process?

A: It's been a vital aspect to not only my work but my very being and coming of age. Re-contextualizing old familial histories as content and material has brought a greater appreciation for my inherited experience and helped me understand a history I felt was denied to me because of my family's immigrant experience.

Q: Your work strikingly combines personal history with larger historical subjects. What specific historical subject matter calls to you these days?

A: I am currently working on a body of work that draws from images of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. I have always been coming back to this event throughout my practice and it has coalesced into a series of works I am making now that confronts my problematic romanticization of a collective trauma endured by my parents and their generation, and how, if at all, it affected the migration of my family.

Q: What has been inspiring you lately?

A: Always listening to lots of music, check out [Mac Miller’s] “Larry Lovestein and the Velvet Revival.”

“I was moved to collect two of Larry’s artworks in part because of the intimate stories that each of them tell about his unique family history, but also because
I think it’s way past time for Asian artists to garner the interest and support they so clearly warrant. Larry Li combines technical skill with the compelling subject matter and multiple materials to superb effect.”

PATSY MARINO

The Here and There Collective, LLC is a New York limited-liability company operating through a fiscal sponsorship with Players Philanthropy Fund, a Maryland charitable trust recognized by IRS as a tax-exempt public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Federal Tax ID: 27-6601178). Contributions to The Here and There Collective are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.