An eight-meter-long line of human figures made from plastic and x-rays lit by iridescent lamps is hard to take your eyes off. But that's the point.
Li Jiwei, 45, first exhibited the piece in his installation Don't Copy at the Museum fuer Voelkerkunde in Vienna in 1998.
And he brought it to Beijing last month for a products demonstration by Bayer.
"The slices in men's shapes are supposed to be 'clones'," Li said. "They represent modern scientific progress, which improves our life but also brings crises to it."
Don't Copy is by no means Li's most novel work, as he has used dozens of materials in the past, including wood, stone, glass and silk.
But his favorite medium of artistic expression is plexiglass.
"When you paint on canvas, you only see images on the canvas, but when you paint on plexiglass, you have a broader vision," Li said. "Compared with glass, plexiglass has more layers of color while boasting even transparency; it also has a high-level of plasticity."
Plexiglass also embodies a sense of modernity, which, he believes, makes a perfect connection with elements of traditional Chinese art.
One of Li's favorite themes is jinyu, or gold fish, an auspicious symbol in traditional Chinese culture.
Jinyu is made up of two characters: "Jin" and "Yu." The first means gold, while the other shares the same pronunciation with another Chinese character meaning surplus food for the following year. The fish, therefore, became a mascot in China depicting wealth.
"It represents oriental vitality," according to Li.
It also conveys the artist's longing for innovation, in terms of new painting techniques and the use of plexiglass instead of xuan paper, the material used specifically for Chinese painting and calligraphy.
"I first take photographs of fish, edit them on my computer, and copy their outline onto the plexiglass before applying colors. I use Western painting pigment but mostly traditional Chinese techniques."
He also uses the images of gold fish in his furniture designs.
"Gold fish furniture embodies Eastern and Western art," Li said. "The vitality of the swimming sits in contrast to the silent material, implying the relation between nature and science."
Many believe they can see Chinese elements in Li's work, despite the variety of materials and techniques.
"Oriental elements will always exist in my works," he said. "But I do not go out of my way to show them. I was born Chinese, and the influence of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy is deep inside me. It just flows out naturally."
Li will return to Beijing, his hometown, to hold a solo exhibition called "SCART" in 2006.
(China Daily August 2, 2005)
