Li Xinmo, a contemporary artist, critic, and curator, was born in 1976 in Yilan County, Heilongjiang Province, China. From a young age, Li studied calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting, and in 2005, she was admitted to the Chinese Painting Department of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts to further her studies in these arts. She has published works including “Li Xinmo’s Copybook of Yang Ning-style Leek Flowers.” Li combines calligraphy with contemporary art concepts, creating large-scale performative installation works such as “Writing Sutra – Woman.”
In 2016, she pivoted to contemporary art creation, using art to intervene in social realities. From social scenes to personal narratives, she employs photography, video, and performance art to express her critique and thoughts on social realities. She focuses on issues like ecology, gender, and social justice, producing a series of works representative of feminist perspectives. In 2012, Li joined the “Bald Gopher Women,” a female art collective in China that explicitly advocates for feminist ideas and continuously voices for women.
Li Xinmo merges drama with performative art elements to create a unique form of poetic theater. Her eco-feminist signature works, “Death of the New River” and “A Farewell Ceremony,” combine river pollution with the plight of women, using beautiful yet harsh visual imagery to reveal the dark realities hidden beneath social appearances.
Another of her notable works is the “Menstrual Blood Painting” series. From 2009 to 2019, she used her monthly menstrual blood to paint self-portraits and female nude portraits, challenging “social taboos” while also expressing the physical pains and real experiences of women, such as abortion and childbirth, through these images. This series has become an important work in feminist art.
In 2015, Li turned to AI art creation, using DeepDream technology to recreate her hand-drawn works, producing a series of images that blend futuristic and mystical elements. These works aim to break the boundaries between humans and machines, as well as between humans and nature, by integrating figures, animals, and plants to create unique visual images. This series, named “Daydreams,” stands as an early representative work of artificial intelligence art, exploring the possibilities of human-machine collaboration.
Li Xinmo’s works have been exhibited in significant museums around the world, including the Museum of East Asian Art in Sweden, the World Culture Museum in Gothenburg, the Women’s Museum in Bonn, Germany, the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, Austria, the Lillehammer Art Museum in Norway, and the Ipswich Museum (CIMS) in the UK. She has also participated in the Toronto Photography Biennial, the Prague Chinese and European International Art Biennial, and more.
Her works are collected by the Swedish Oriental Museum, TEDA Contemporary Art Museum, and collectors in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, among others. She has also been recognized by UN Women. Her scholarly articles have been published in “National Fine Arts” and “Masters of Eastern Art” among other professional art journals. She curated the “Alien Bodies” feminist art exhibition; in 2017, she planned the “Performance Art and Postmodern Theater” exhibition for Ullens UCCA; in 2018, she organized the “Maps and Territories” international art exhibition; and in 2019, she curated the “In China” German art exhibition at the German Embassy.
Website: li-xinmo.com
