Untitled

Untitled (1993) by Li Xinhui

Mixed media on canvas, 1m x 1m

Collector: Sallie Beaumont

I met Li Xinhui in early 1993 in Beijing. He’s originally from Kunming in Yunnan, a Hui Chinese, but had been living in the capital about four years when our paths crossed. He had already studied three years of oil painting, sculpture and Chinese painting at the Kunming Art and Design Institute by the age of 18 and then made his way to Beijing to further his art studies. He was precocious and quite brilliant. For somebody so young he impressed me with his maturity and absolute dedication to his art. At the time we met, his home and studio were out at the Yuanmingyuan artist village, of which he was one of the founding members, and I got to know a large part of the artist community through my friendship with Xinhui. They were exhilarating times as the Chinese contemporary art scene was seeping into the consciousness of overseas collectors and gallery owners who began streaming through the artist village looking for the next big thing.

Xinhui always marched to the beat of his own drum. While the Yuanmingyuan artist village gave birth to political pop and cynical realism, Xinhui steadfastly stuck to his own course. His early work was greatly influenced by the traditions and culture of his native Kunming. The well-known political pop artist, Qi Zhilong, said in an introduction to a book on Xinhui’s paintings that “Xinhui’s works have always maintained a distance from prevailing trends.”

This mixed media painting that has no name was the precursor for his Gate series but at the time it was a standalone that I adored and bought from him. He mixed strands of hemp and plaster into oil paint and spread the mixture thickly across the canvas. With his hands he shaped white clumps of plaster and hemp that took on forms of people inside their own darkened doorways. He called his way of working a “stream of consciousness style… a happy monologue of a wild heart.” This is such a tactile work and for 31 years it has been hanging on my walls in Beijing, Sydney, New York and back to Sydney again and has been a great talking point. Nobody can resist running their fingers across the surface. I’ve always seen it as humans passing through doors and gates of life to find their happy space and meaning in the wider world but whether that was what Xinhui thought at the time is another question. He has always been connected to his inner world and seems to live free of the worries and concerns of the material. Although he’s now moved on in other artistic directions, one thing has not changed: he is still dedicated to his art practice and he continues to march to the beat of his own drum.

Sallie Beaumont

(Sallie Beaumont lived, studied and worked in China from 1988-1998 which gave her the perfect opportunity to witness and engage with the burgeoning contemporary art scene.)