Design Series: Condense the Known (2015-2022)

Humans are inevitably unable to escape the microcosm of everyday life. Regardless of their form, the things that make up the human world are everyday objects. Observing those objects and scenes that depend on human presence, feeling their independent and tranquil existence (these small existences), makes Li Feng believe that when a person’s emotions are invested in everyday life itself, then everyday objects possess a certain spiritual energy in their unadorned state, each displaying a myriad of miniature weather phenomena. They seem to have no secrets, yet each has its own privacy.

As a poet constructs ambiguity in meaning with words, Li Feng similarly constructs thought-provoking works encompassing a vast array of symbols—from everyday objects such as a bench, an egg box, or a drum kit, to the use of language in the form of text, an unfolded dice, or the structure of the periodic system. However, when depicted in Li Feng’s enigmatic pictures, these symbols seem to be marked by introspection, losing their prosaic character and entering existential realms. Through this rational and contemplative approach, the Chinese artist discusses notions of uncertainty and absurdity, the tangible and the elusive, or the material and the spiritual.

In Condense the Known, the artist pieces together glimpses and ambiguous cross-sections of reality, reflecting on Li Feng’s evolving perspective, experience, and understanding of the world surrounding us—focusing on everyday objects, entering forbidden territories, and thus finding new metaphysical realities, dissolving the distinction between truth and illusion.