Contemporary Chinese Ceramics- Li Lihong

Contemporary sculptor Li Lihong was born in Dezhen Jin and graduated from the China Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing. He also trained with Qin Xiling, a master of ceramics. Lihong is inspired by traditional Chinese ceramics, but with a contemporary twist. With the influence of the Western world creeping into China, Lihong focuses on the mixed blessings of the commercial westernization on thousands of years of Chinese culture. He creates perfect visual metaphors using iconography such as Coca-Cola, McDonal's, Apple, Mickey Mouse, and Nike that co-exist with traditional colorful Chinese Motifs. His artwork creates a conflict of tradition and modernity between the East and the West.

Using experimental techniques, Li Lihong achieves this surprising mix of minimalist shapes, geometrical and curved lines, and goes beyond the limits of traditional ceramics. Through elements of daily life, he expressed as well, through his visual language, the changes in the Chinese society and its capacity to assimilate various cultures to which it is faced.