Ying Li
Fort George River, Turquoise, Oil on linen, 12" x 12"
Gross McCleaf Gallery is excited to announce the arrival of Ying Li’s Weather Report, a two-part exhibition that began at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery.
In this compelling body of work, Li explores how the environment’s transient qualities—its shifting light, textures, and colors—are translated to the tactile surface of her canvases.
Blurring the line between abstraction and realism, her densely layered en plein air paintings capture the vital energy and atmosphere of landscapes across Florida, Virginia, and Northern Ireland, evoking an extraordinary sensory experience.
Li’s works are as much about her physical engagement with paint as they are about the landscapes themselves. In her recent conversation with artist and writer Elizabeth Johnson, Li described her instinctive approach to painting landscapes as a process rooted in direct observation saying, “I work from what’s in front of me. Looking is a crucial part of the process. The structure of the painting flows from that”. For Li, each painting is an endeavor to, “make sense of what I see and deliver the unique sensation, through paint and color, that each landscape provokes.”
Ballycastle (Misty), County Mayo, Mixed media on paper, 16" x 20"
Influenced by her background in Chinese calligraphy and ink painting, Li blends bold brushstrokes with her signature heavy application of oil paint, noting, “Mark-making is natural for me”. She likens her approach to, “musicians using their instruments: you don’t think about it, you just blow.” This intuitive approach infuses her landscapes with a dynamic, rhythmic quality. Her works balance representation and abstraction, harnessing both the visible architecture of the natural world and the intangible feelings it inspires.
Li says her method opens up “all kinds of possibilities and problems,” which she embraces: “I love problems. They make me sharper and get me going”.
Ying Li is an American painter and art educator, born in Beijing, China, immigrated to the United States in 1983. She is the Phlyssa Koshland Professor of Fine Arts at Haverford College. BFA Anhui Normal University, China 1977, MFA Parsons School of Design, 1987.
Ying Li, Artist Portrait, painting en plein air
Li’s work is represented by Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, NY; Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia, Alice Gauvin Projects in Washington, D.C. and Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden in Dallas, Texas.
Her work has been featured internationally in Centro Incontri Umani Ascona, Swizterland; ISA Gallery, Italy; Enterprise Gallery, Ireland; Museum of Rocheforten-Terre, France; American Academy of Arts and Letters, The National Academy Museum, The Hood Museum, NH; James Michener Art Museum PA; The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, VA; The Aspen Institute, CO; Chautauqua Institution, NY; Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve, FL; New York Studio School, Lohin Geduld Gallery, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Lori Bookstein Projects, Tibor De Nagy Gallery, all in New York City; Gross McCleaf Gallery and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
She was the recipient of Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize and Henry Ward Ranger Fund Purchase Award both from National Academy NYC; Donald Jay Gordon Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Swarthmore College; Artist-in-Residence, Dartmouth College; the McMillan Stewart Visiting Critic, Maryland Institute College of Art; Ruth Mayo Distinguished Visiting Artist, The University of Tulsa; Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome; Ballinglen Foundation Fellowship, 2024; Fraces Niederer Artist-in-Residence, as well as the recipient of various Residential Fellowships in Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, France and Ireland, and at Kingsley Plantation, Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve, FL.
Li’s works has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Art in America, New York Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Hyperallergic, artcritical, and The Washington Post, among others.
