Changpeng Li

This is a detail image of a painting named Trapping Us inside Monitors.

Changpeng Li (b. 1998) lives and works between London, UK and Shanghai, China.

He observes the inherent violence in the proliferation of images. These images, although seemingly innocuous, carry an undercurrent of violence towards the viewer, manifested through ceaseless visual stimulation and an overwhelming influx of information that compels action. In this context, the image itself becomes a form of violence.

Through painting, photography, and film, Li delves into the deeper meanings hidden behind the visual veneer. His paintings generate ambiguity and uncertainty in a search for meaning.

Li uses painting, photography, and moving images to explore the deeper meanings behind images that are beloved and produced by the Generation Z. He uses these "happy" images on the social media as the subject matter and he aims to delve into the complexities of the visual culture that surrounds us and to question the underlying messages and assumptions that shape our understanding of the world.

The violence always completes itself in an image. In his works, Li fragments images from Generation Z, then repatch them through the lens of absence and negative space. He brings the frenzied digital images of social media back to the darkroom for re-development, with the aim of enabling us to not only look something, but also see something deeper. By doing so, he aimed to create a sense of boundaries without content, which would evoke a sense of homogenized security.

He plays with speed change in works of different mediums. Through distorting sensory experience, he reconceived images so that they directly face the origin of their symbolic meaning. At the heart of his image-centered practice is the creation of void. With the Void, Full Powers. Now the image can flow or it can crush.