Chelsea Xiaoyu Li

A knot necklace with eEurope traditional royal necklace form. Material: silver; Jade.

Chelsea Xiaoyu Li is a London-based jewellery artist who is originally from Beijing, China, obtained her MA degree at Royal College of Art in Jewellery & Metal. She had a deep interest in painting and fine art since childhood and put pleasure into jewellery art at university. Most of her work is anchored on the relationship between self-identity and hybridity culture and is merged with modern art to advance the area of traditional handicraft through her own studies and observation of geo-culture, history, and philosophy. In the meanwhile, she continues to discover the fascination and potential of traditional craftsmanship while transform it into contemporary jewellery art.

The artwork of Chelsea Xiaoyu Li includes jewellery, traditional crafts, painting, and other mediums. In order to gain a deeper understanding and reflection on the development and formation of geo-culture (different cultures), she studies the history, philosophy, and culture of geo-culture. Based on these studies, she studies traditional crafts in different cultural contexts and attempts to define personal identity in contemporary society in the context of hybridity culture. She also makes an effort to consider the connection between traditional craftsmanship and contemporary art.

Li is also really fascinated with exploring and learning traditional craftsmanship from different cultures, as she considers traditional craftsmanship as a microcosm of a country's culture that contains history and cultural succession. As an immigrant artist, she explores her self-identity in modern society via the process of studying traditional crafts in various cultural situations, trying to innovate without upsetting the harmony between tradition and contemporary art.

Scholar Homi Bhabha once said, "Cultural hybridity does not mean the intersection of two cultures, but the state of two cultures existing simultaneously. Cultural hybridity explores the space between cultural identities through constant repetition." Through her work, Li interprets her work as a tool to encourage contemplation of the viewers’ self-identity and evoke the exploration and reflection of hybridity culture.