Lot 124: Li Jikai , B. 1975 Growth Time acrylic on canvas

signed in Chinese and Pinyin and dated 2006 ; signed in Pinyin and dated 2006 acrylic on canvas

57 by 72 7/8 in. 145 by 185 cm.

Li Jikai was born in Chengdu in 1975 and graduated with a master's degree from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. Participating in dozens of exhibitions annually over the last five years, he is a leading artist of the so-called "Ego Generation." For the generation born in the 1970's, feelings of confusion about the radical changes of contemporary China are simply a fact of life that is accepted dispassionately; the pain of older generations as they grapple with the legacy of group conformity, lost idealism about the future, and the instability of ultimate purpose and responsibility is lost on this younger generation. A markedly different artistic vision is the result, one in which the relationship between art and society or art and politics is eschewed in favor of an interior fantasy dream world. Li's work revolves around biography and narrative, although the traditional nomenclature of 'portraiture' or 'genre scene' hardly describes his cryptic, often humorous compositions. Mountains of trash, immense skeletons and giant elephant sculls, beautiful poisonous mushrooms, tables like stage sets upon which Lilliputian figures carry out strange activities?this is the almost surreal world of Li Jikai. His paintings offer a child-like, cartoonish vision of a fast, chaotic, and magical reality, representing the experience of a youthful, self-obsessed generation raised in the virtual worlds of video-games and daydreams. In the work on offer, Growth Time, an acrylic on canvas painting from 2006, we see a lonely doll-like figure rendered in grays and whites examining a bunch of yellow, polka-dotted mushrooms that seem to sprout forcefully from the earth. The figure's right foot is posed on what seems the horizon line of the picture, but this central narrative vignette emerges in the center of what is essentially an abstract painting, and quite a fascinating one with its feigned spatial recession and play of interconnected figurative elements and background. The top region of the picture is a beautiful expanse of white and light turquoise washes that drip freely into the darker areas below; it is seemingly indicative of the sky. The darker area below is rendered in a range of greens and grays with black and earthen-hued highlights; it creates the impression of an enclosed clearing in a damp otherworldly forest as the setting for this strange confrontation. Whatever fairytale of Li's imagination the work depicts, the artist's expressive painterly technique is the main story here. Characteristic of Li's dreamlike worlds, Growth Time is more importantly an embodiment of this intriguing young artist's considerable skill.