It is Leo Gallery’s honour to hold in Shanghai the solo exhibition of emerging artist Li Yiwen – “Durée”. It would be an integrated manifestation of Li Yiwen’s recent thinkings and works in a new form.

The theme “Durée” is borrowed from French philosopher Henri Bergson, who drew a distinction between two kinds of time. There is “mathematical time” which occurs in the theories of the natural sciences that is measurable, and there is the “lived-time” or “durée” that we experience directly. However, Li Yiwen does not just follow Henri Bergson’s concept, but instead incorporates the issue of “time in painting” into the creation and brings forward the “third kind of time” in painting – a time that is associated with perception, a time where all memory, intuition, and experience inosculate as a whole. Discovering words or terms from everyday life and reading, then deconstructing and reconstructing these words in combination with artistic perceiving and experiencing, and opening up a brand-new interpretation in the way of painting, is the main path of Li Yiwen’s recent creations, as well as the source of the theme of this exhibition.

By using contemporary methods, Li Yiwen filters, selects and promotes the images. He puts the elements of the non-logic, fiction, movements and instincts into paintings, which goes beyond the traditional visual narrations and generates a new kind of meaning – a state of de-familiarization that is perceptible. Therefore, the space of imagination is continuously opened up and extended, which expands the possibilities of painting and establishes a new way of expression.