"Painting provides me an antidote against [the] afflictions of time. It might start with a yearning, an instinct to retain something from the past, yet it always flows back to the present. In consecutive mark-making, the vicissitude of time is reenacted, memory stirs -- be it a face, a dream, or a dissolved romance, I try to see it through, see beyond my sentiments, beyond transient particularities, and uncover its bare existence, rid of temporal contingencies."--Yifan Li
In Gallery II, Goldfinch proudly presents The Visage of Time, a solo exhibition of paintings from Chicago-based artist Yifan Li. The Visage of Time marks Li’s first solo exhibition at Goldfinch.
In The Visage of Time, Yifan Li delves into the intricacies of memory, as inspired by Marcel Proust's panoramic, seven-volume novel, In Search of Lost Time. In it, Proust wrote, "The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time."
Li explores the transient nature of memory through her work, capturing the fleeting moments often overshadowed by our emotional attachments to the past. Her artistic journey reveals the duality of human experience—while imagining the unchangeable past can lead to mental distress, so too can an anxious concern for the elusive future. "Painting provides me an antidote against such afflictions of time," Li explains. Her creative process begins with a yearning to retain something from the past but quickly evolves into a reaffirmation of the present, where memory is reimagined and brought back to life on canvas. "The act of painting allows me to reflect on the true image that 'lost' time once impressed upon me, recognizing its unpossessed essence—the essence of the eternal now."
Each brushstroke becomes a declaration of existence, challenging the viewer to engage with time in a novel way. In these works, Li seeks to liberate memories from the confines of nostalgia, offering a boundless present where all experiences coalesce. Li invites viewers to step beyond their personal histories in her powerful exploration of time, revealing a collective understanding of existence. By detaching from the ego, Li and her work encourage dialogue about our past and our place in the continuum of time—a theme that resonates universally.
“Just like the Proustian language was probably as much searching as purging lost time,” notes Li, “painting is an effort to express something irretrievable; it transforms the regret for the past and thus buoys us up in the flow of time. To paint is to see the face of the present.”
Artist’s Bio
Yifan Li (b. 2000, Beijing) is a Chinese painter currently based in Chicago. Influenced by Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, she seeks the universal truth of Being, and painting is her vehicle for this pursuit. Mark-making is her practice of mindfulness—in Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Zen Buddhist teacher’s words, keeping consciousness alive to the present reality—and through which she contemplates and overcomes her personal attachment to experiences and thoughts, and distills their essence into revelations of colors and light. Through painting, she endeavors to transform the limited individualities into unreserved open phenomena that invite direct responses from feelings and evoke awareness of the present. In paintings, she tries to bring forth the beauty of a rose when Agnes Martin puts it behind her back.
Li holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2024). A piece of hers has the honor of being in the Collection of the Midwest Buddhist Temple of Chicago (2023).
Education
2024, BFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Selected Group Shows
2024
here we were come to see the dawn, The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, IL
perennial (traces), Strata Gallery, IL
spring undergraduate exhibition, SAIC, IL
2022
grand rising: on feeling and interbeing, SAIC, IL
Publications
2019, poem selected in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, vol 45-46
