Disquieting in both its graphic content and perverse visual appeal, this work provides the conflicting experience of drawing you in while turning your stomach. A skillfully depicted, brightly colored songbird dangles lifelessly from a miniature noose strung on a bare, spindly branch. The backdrop of pale, drab clouds set against a muted sky give the unsettling feeling of either an execution at dawn or a polluted wasteland. The composition and painting style provide a disturbing variation on Northern Song (960-1126) bird-and-flower painting, which traditionally presented lively birds perched on elegant floral branches against a background of plain taupe silk. In Lili's reinterpretation, all the leaves have wilted and fallen away, and the bird has opted to take its own life. Although dramatic, the work is instilled with a sense of peace and surrender.
A word from The Artist
The works are quite simple, but deciphering them is perhaps a bit complicated. I’m interested in why we love, hate, and always feel unsatisfied. I want to use narrative to describe the relationship between man and man, man and the environment, man and himself—thus creating a space brimming with contradiction, constraint and release.
Suicide Bird
自杀的鸟
By LI Li
由李丽创作
Prints are created with archival-quality pigment inks and 100% cotton rag acid-free paper.
Each print comes with a certificate of authenticity numbered and signed by the artist.
Dimensions are for the size of the paper on which the image is printed - not the image itself. All prints have a white border to allow for framing.
Revenues from each purchase are shared with the artist.
The composition and painting style of Li Li's Suicide Bird provide a disturbing variation on Northern Song (960-1126) bird-and-flower painting, which traditionally presented lively birds perched on elegant floral branches (as pictured here.)