A closer look into the transformative journey of the artist and the new series that burst out of the pandemic.
Johnnie Grinder, September 16, 2020
Orange Li with her paintings at Mana Contemporary (2020). Photo: Johnnie Grinder
Orange Li’s journey started as an unwanted girl who was nearly sold by her father. This experience became the seed for her desire to prove her worth to the world. As a child, she searched for female role models, and found there were not many in history to choose from. She became fascinated with the very limited role models available such as Marie Curie, Coco Chanel, and Frida Kahlo. Later she discovered Hilma af Klint who she felt a deep and surreal connection with.
The difficult beginnings of her childhood led her into the arts where she learned to paint her way out of her past. Now after many years and even more struggles we are seeing her work come alive as an ever expanding map of insights and connection, filled with cryptic messages that seem to speak through her delicate brush strokes.
Growing up in Taiwan and then immigrating to the USA has been a challenge, but it has also given Orange the gift of seeing the world from two perspectives.
In 2018, in New York, after a painful breakup, financial collapse, and isolated in her studio, she had a major meltdown, not unlike a caterpillar, who turns to goo and then reemerges as a new creature seeing the world with new eyes. I call her experience a “melt up” because of the positive changes and insights that arose from her experience. It was at this time that she began to pay closer attention to her dreams, and found inspiration flowing freely to her through meditation. Her interests were reignited dramatically at this time into the teachings of ancient philosophers, mythology, physics, astronomy and the natural sciences. As her dream world and intellectual world grew, it began to naturally circulate out of her and onto the canvas.
Her work reflects a fusion of inner and outer worlds, Eastern and Western thinking and elements, and a unique perspective of the world from a female’s perspective.
Orange Li, White Tiger, (2020). Courtesy of the artist
This new series was created in the midst of the pandemic, which was a time of social isolation, but also a time of great personal growth. When creating the spirited animals series she noticed that most creatures painted would always depict fierce and tough wildness. Orange realized that these spirit animals were so powerful that they had no need to show their toughness, so she created them with feminine and masculine qualities, being a fine balance between gentle and powerful. She decided that by painting these animals at peace with their environment, she became at peace with herself. With the tiger she went so far as to even have the fur become finely combed, somehow elegant, not wild and unkempt. The soft and tender background colours depict the innocence of a child that contrasts beautifully with the intense symbolism of the animals.
When I look at the intricate designs and beautifully detailed linework in this series I feel as if the linework is somehow communicating a message that gives different meaning to me every time I look deeply into it. The images are filled with what gives me the sense that we have one foot in a subatomic world, while holding hands with a far away galaxy.
