Li Tianbing | Intrusion: Homage to Francis Bacon

Opera Gallery Hong Kong

16 March - 06 April 2023

Opera Gallery Hong Kong is delighted to present «Intrusion: Homage to Francis Bacon», Li Tianbing’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Born under China's one-child policy in 1974, Li Tianbing experienced a grey and solitary childhood, and suffered from the void of being raised alone. After moving to France in 1996 to follow his dream of becoming an artist by integrating the Ecole de Beaux-Arts de Paris, Li Tianbing’s artistic aesthetic was disrupted by the discovery of Francis Bacon’s art during a retrospective held at the Centre Pompidou. The power that emanates from Bacon's paintings pushes the artist to break out of his artistic comfort zone and influenced his work, to the point that his peers called him "the Chinese Bacon".

In this series, Li Tianbing portrayed himself and his imaginary siblings as mischievous children who break into Bacon’s studio, which used to be a forbidden place when the artist was still alive. Thus Francis Bacon’s studio becomes a playground where the children can be seen playing with the wanderings of their imagination, splashing themselves with paint, climbing on giraffes and playing with monkeys. Snow is an important visual element in Li Tianbing’s new body of works, as it is something he also dreamt of experiencing as a child. His paintings allow him to reconstruct his childhood through parallel worlds. As the artist mentions: «My works are constantly trying to reshape my childhood and keep questioning my past memories».