Toy Series
Li Tingting
李婷婷
Production date
2006
Object Detail
Media
ink on rice paper
Measurements
248 x 26.5 cm
Notes
Li Tingting’s ink paintings initially focused on ‘feminine’ subject matter such as handbags, shoes and dresses, but in a deliberate effort not to be pigeon-holed or stereotyped, she began to include banal objects associated with contemporary life and mass-production, such as disposable plastic water bottles and light bulbs. Her Shoes series of 2007–08 has sometimes been interpreted as a feminist response to societal pressure on women to adopt an overtly feminine identity, but Li artist rejects this reading of her work, insisting that her intention was to celebrate her life as a young woman. Other works represent teddy bears, fruits, and flowers – even sunflower seeds. Cascading shapes spill down the surface of her paper in a deceptively spontaneous manner. In actuality the process of working with traditional inks, balancing wet and dry brushstrokes, is exacting and painstaking. Li Tingting surprises through her choice of bright colour and her contemporary choice of subjects, whilst at the same time she pays homage to the Chinese ink tradition. Seventeenth century ink master Shi Tao’s oft-quoted insistence, ‘The brush and Ink should follow the times,’ an assertion of individual vision opposed to the orthodox forces of historicism, reveals that the alignment of contemporaneity and ink painting is nothing new in Chinese art.
Accession number
2006.035