Sherbet Green (2023)
Into My Arms
Group Show
In these works, Li Li Ren envisions inter-body and inter-temporal connection through the aquatic. Driven by an interest in the physics of water flow as symbolic of a desire to understand not only the distant presence of human memory and intimacy, but that of natural organisms beyond the anthropoid, the artist uses a wide range of materials to sculpt, weave and cast ambiguous sea-life forms and geologies.
Central to Ren’s ongoing body of work is a preoccupation with semiotics, and more specifically communication beyond verbal and written language. In her submerged realm, marine lifeforms surpass spatial disjunction through electric currents running between them, interpreted by specialised receptors of sensation that await information.
An integral element to the makeup and origin of this body of work is the parallel between ancient-or-future creatures communicating through waves and ripples, and the ineffable sensation of motherhood and the imagining of the womb as akin not to our constructed worlds and languages, but rather to something older, rooted in sensation.
