solo exhibitions
paradise lost, Unit, London, 2024-2025
Amy Hui Li x AMBEDO, Hot Sheet, London, 2024
group exhibitions
A Trace Without A Tail, LINSEED, Shanghai, 2025
Expanding the Boundaries of Photography, Hot Sheet, London, 2024
Airy Disk, River Art Gallery, Taichung, 2024
Theater of Energies, Arsenal Contemporary, New York, 2024
Can You Afford to 'Pay' Attention?, Heart Lab, London, 2024
Worlds Beyond, Unit, London, 2024
TEN - A decade of Unit, Unit, London, 2023
Summer Graduate Show, Anise Gallery, London, 2023
London Calling, Unit, London, 2023
Works on Paper, Thames-Side Studios, London, 2023
Third Floor Exhibition, RCA Photography Studio, London, 2022
Cast a Shadow, The Safehouse, London, 2022
installation views
A Trace Without A Tail, LINSEED, Shanghai.
8 February - 12 March, 2025
LINSEED is delighted to present the group show "A Trace Without A Tail" from February 8 to March 12, 2025, featuring the latest works by a group of artists: Amy Hui LI (b.1997, Guangzhou, China), Travis MACDONALD (b.1990, New Zealand), Prae PUPITYASTAPORN (b.1981, Thailand), Shumu (b.1994, South Korea), Jesse ZUO (b.2000, Beijing, China), and ZHANG Jiechen (b.1991, Changchun, China).
As we gaze upon nature and attune ourselves to the sensations of the body, we are inevitably drawn to question both the phenomena before us and their origins. The notion of "existence" becomes multifaceted, and objects that leave traces also harbour the potential to disappear without a trace. This exhibition brings together the distinct observations and creative expressions of the artists, each offering a unique exploration of these profound inquiries. The works on view delve into the interplay between personal reflections and the memories embedded in the environment, offering a profound insight into the artists' intimate encounters with nature, land, living beings, and the human condition. The boundary between the abstract and the real becomes delicately blurred, yet the tangible remains distinct amidst the ethereal. The tranquil light that permeates the works incubates subtle dynamics, inviting the viewer into a garden of thought yet to be discovered.
paradise lost, Unit, London.
12 December 2024 - 19 January 2025
Amy Hui Li’s first solo exhibition with Unit is a deeply personal exploration of materiality, fragility and emotion. Balanced between painting and sculpture, paradise lost narrates the process of falling apart and coming back together again.
Immediately evocative of John Milton’s epic poem, the exhibition’s title reconsiders ideas of sin and grace in a contemporary context. In this sense, Li looks also to the song of the same name – ‘paradise lost/ 失乐园’ written by the Cantonese lyricist Wyman Wong and performed by the Hong Kong based band, Grasshopper – which encapsulates the dichotomy of everyday existence in a world that is cruel and strange, yet also exciting and wondrous. Each painting delves into Li’s personal experiences of struggle and reparation and, in doing so, exposes her inner self and a version of her own ‘paradise lost.’
Since completing her academic journey a year ago, Li’s visual language has shifted and developed. The exhibition sees her layer oil paint into her mixed media works, honouring her strong connection to painting. The artist’s use of colour is a key thread that weaves its way throughout paradise lost and her practice more broadly. Her signature use of red is unveiled in full force, expressing the burning intensity of the present moment and the negative emotions of pain and sorrow. However, Li is constantly aware of the alternative connotations of the colour red, which, for some, signifies ideas of passion and love.
Expanding the Boundaries of Photography, Hot Sheet, London.
Downstairs, The Department Store, Brixton
11 - 12 October, 2024
The annual Hot Sheet exhibition returns in 2024 with a fresh perspective on the evolving landscape of contemporary photography. This year's show challenges traditional notions of photography as a two-dimensional medium, showcasing works that blur the line between image and object. Featuring a selection of artists whose work transcends conventional photography, Hot Sheet 2024 delves into how light, texture, and form can be molded to explore the physicality of the photograph. With pieces ranging from a reflection of water transposed onto aluminum to a rainbow mathematically reimagined and captured through heat on stainless steel, the exhibition pushes the limits of how photography is understood and experienced.
Hot Sheet 2024 features a diverse group of artists who explore these themes, including Daniel Arteaga, Katie Eleanor, Tom Faber, Sotiris Gonis, Amy Hui Li, Anna Ill, Isabel Merchante, Victor Nyberg, Aastha Patel, and Amber Toplisek. Together, their works offer a compelling reimagining of what photography can be in both the physical and digital age.
Amy Hui Li x AMBEDO, Hot Sheet, London, 2024
Notes from Curator
Amy’s paintings represent a bold departure from traditional photography, marking the furthest we’ve ventured from the medium in our selection process. In this way, Amy serves as a catalyst for this year’s theme, which explores the boundaries of what can be considered photographic. Her paintings, for us, evoke photographic film burning through her incorporation of textile elements which allow the works to assume three-dimensional shapes. Her pure use of elemental blues and reds speak to the raw emotive quality of her work.
Airy Disk, River Art Gallery, Taichung.
15 June - 3 August, 2024
RIVER ART GALLERY will hold the new group show “Airy Disk,” featuring six artists, including Korean artist Lili Lee, Polish artist Magdalena Gluszak – Holeksa who makes her debut in Taiwan, Chinese artists Amy Hui Li and Xinran Liu who studied art in the UK, as well as the highly acclaimed Taiwanese artist Julia Hung and Japanese artist Tomoko Hasuwa. The show will delve into layers of visual perception through diverse perspectives, inviting viewers to journey through different images into a rich, spiritual dimension, thereby resonating with their own spectrum of life and finding moments of familiarity.
The Airy disk, a fundamental concept in all optical systems, is an element we encounter every day as soon as we open our eyes. The human eye is essentially like a lens of a certain size, and when light enters the eye, it inevitably produces countless Airy Disks on the retina. These Airy Disks, when superimposed upon each other, form the unforgettable images in our brains. Though an optical phenomenon, the Airy disk also possesses a certain “physicality.” The process of overall interaction leading to the output and transmission to the brain involves subtle emotions and physical memories. This show highlights artists as the eyes of people, perceive and experience the world from different angles, like various lenses, slicing through bodily incisions, the nuances of inner emotions, and even many aspects of life and social issues. They then combine these fragments of memory or fleeting glimpses of everyday life, transcending sensory levels and elevating to the inner spiritual realm.
Theater of Energies, Arsenal Contemporary, New York.
7 July - 23 August, 2024
Arsenal Contemporary is pleased to present the summer group exhibition Theater of Energies, an experimental mise-en-scène exploring the manifestation and interanimation of energy in space. Curated by gaoyuan, the exhibition features over thirty recent sculptures, paintings, photographs, videos, and site-specific installations by ten artists of diverse backgrounds. The exhibition invites the visitor on an immersive journey of poetic encounters that offers glimpses of the energetic flow animated by art. The exhibition unfolds in three Acts—Streams, Obsessions, Continuums—each corresponding to energetic states of equilibrium, fixity, and release. In each Act, the focus is on the scene of impact and exchange of energies, liberating art from representation and interpretation to embrace the poetic resonance of the unknown.
The exhibition brings together works by Nicolas Baier (Montreal, b. 1967), Bingyi (Beijing, b. 1972), Michelle Bui (Montreal, b. 1987), Patrick Coutu (Montreal, b. 1975), Cui Fei (New York, b. 1970), Nicolas Lachance (Montreal, b. 1981), Amy Hui Li (London, b. 1997), Leah Ying Lin (New York, b. 1994), Motohiro Takeda (New York, b. 1982), Julian Zehnder (New York, b. 1995).
The opening night will be marked by an immersive performance by Leah Ying Lin and Kennie Zhou with original live music by MIZU. It will also feature a phygital séance by Kevin Heisner, Spukhafte Fernwirkungen (“spooky actions at a distance”), joining quantum entanglement with contemporary psychedelia.
The exhibition is complemented by a special zine 3 A.M. Provocations: In Lieu of A Curatorial Statement, which provides a more intimate narrative of the exhibition’s genesis in the form of a minddrift.
Curator: gaoyuan 高媛
Can You Afford to 'Pay' Attention?, HeartLab, London.
Greatorex Street, 10 Greatorex, E1 5NF
4 - 9 June, 2024
“Can you afford to ‘pay’ attention?” exhibition provided an unforgettable and immersive experience for our audience by placing them in a completely dark environment.
Through a curated selection of artworks and interactive displays, visitors explored how attention shapes their perception and experience of art. This unconventional showcase redefined the narrative of art by seamlessly integrating neuroaesthetic insights from the laboratory into the artistic experience.
Operating under the “spotlight theory of attention,” where our brain focuses intensely on specific stimuli, the dark environment amplified this effect by eliminating distracting factors within the space. As a result, the audience becomes highly engaged with each individual work.
This setting also heightened visitors other senses since visual sense is restricted in the dark; meanwhile, the dark environment can boost up our creativity by putting our brain into an “explorative mode”.
In this completely dark environment, the experience of art transcended traditional boundaries, opening up new levels of sensory and cognitive engagement.
Curator: Muqing 穆青
Artists: Cas Campbell, Hou Yuxuan, Amy Hui Li, Emma Jordan, Rosie Mullan, Issy Wilson.
Worlds Beyond, Unit, London.
4 January- 3 February, 2024
Unit’s latest group exhibition guides viewers through an immersive experience that connects form and space. In Worlds Beyond, abstraction provides the means to explore medium as painting and textiles come together to interweave organic, mineral and corporeal elements. Coiled and fluid shapes evoke inner and outer worlds that respond to and interact with the confines of each canvas. In a series of artworks that take inspiration from both immediate surroundings and the mental landscape, flowing forms extend beyond frames, stray beyond boundaries and seep into the outside world.
Worlds Beyond presents a group of artists experimenting with abstraction through their use of material, drawing on subject matter that evokes both the concrete and physical as well as the unconscious and intangible aspects of experience. Artist Allison Reimus uses household items and found textiles to create familiar yet otherworldly spaces. For Reimus, abstraction means being able to explore ideas of motherhood, femininity and domesticity. Amy Hui Li explores the body through her abstract visual language. Li’s biological forms evoke veins and blood vessels, exploring our hidden emotions as well as processes of self-healing and repairing. Repetitively tearing and reshaping home-made felt materials, Li expresses fragility, brokenness and a drive towards intimacy.
Artists: Alba Botines, Allison Reimus, Amy Hui Li, Betty Leung, Ce Jian, Fu Site.
Summer Graduate Show, Anise Gallery, London.
19 September - 7 October, 2023
Anise Gallery is excited to announce our annual graduate exhibition, summer Showcase 2023; a group show bringing together a selection of newly graduated London-based contemporary artists. All artwork was selected through assessing the work’s skill, originality, and technique.The show will consist of multiple mediums including painting, sculpture, photography and an installation piece.
Through our annual graduate showcases, we hope to support the new generation of artists through the promotion and exhibiting of their work during this pivotal moment in their career. In doing so, we will also offer a drop-in day consisting of portfolio reviews by industry professionals. We will also hold a series of talks by industry professionals covering topics from how to secure a grant, how to apply for a residency, how to approach galleries and how to boost your social media presence.
Artists: Adi Avidani, Mia Casati, Xiao Fan, Rachel Gordon, Marika Krapivnitski, Amy Hui Li, Lauryna Narkeviciute, Katie Oplaender, Simona Orentaite, Timothy Simmons.
TEN A decade of Unit, Unit, London.
21 September- 30 September, 2023
Established in September 2013 in a small temporary space in West London, Unit this month celebrates 10 years since its inception.
To commemorate this moment, the gallery will stage a special 10-day exhibition featuring an expansive group of artists that have contributed to programme in some way, large or small, over the last decade.
The exhibition will feature more than 100 works of art, some which have been loaned to the gallery from private collections, and others which have been created especially for the exhibition – offering an opportunity to trace the development of the programming from the past 10 years up until the present day.
London Calling, Unit, London.
23 May - 17 June, 2023
London Calling is a new group exhibition that provides an expansive vision of what it means to be an artist living and working in the UK capital today.
Reflecting the pluralism of the city, the exhibition highlights the extensive variety of artistic voices that are redefining the London art scene and, in turn, broadening ideas of what it means to be British. Encompassing recent arrivals and long-term inhabitants, London Calling celebrates the many artistic contributions of those who have chosen to base themselves in this unique capital city.
Artists: Alfie Ruoy, Alma Berrow, Amy Hui Li, Annie Morris, Betty Leung, David Hockney, Effie Wan Yi Li, Gavin Turk, Haeji Min, Helen Beard, Henry Hudson, Jake Wood-Evans, Lian Zhang, Nick Hornby, Sir Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin.
Works on Paper, Thames-Side Studios, London.
17 February - 8 March, 2023
Artists: Okiki Akinfe, Ana Benavides, Sakia Colwell, Pandora Covell, Aiden Dewar, Ian Douglass, Annice Fell, Emma Glinski, Hesi Glowacki, Santiago Llanos, Hettie Inniss, Sonia Jia, Hilda Kortei, Amy Hui Li, Savannah Marie, Guto Morgan, Elías Peña Salvador, Marius Steiger, Vladimir Umanetz, Jack Whitelock, Yulia Zinshtein.
Third Floor Exhibition, RCA Photography Studio, London.
24 November 2022
Artists: Ziying Li, Phoebe Evans, Sophia Pauley, Sara Osman, Yingzi Qian, Jiayi Wang, Chutong Huang, Emma Windsor-Liscombe, Juliet Ferguson-Rose, Yique, Hanzheng, Rose Henderson, Frida Wannerberger, Ian Douglass, Abi Freckleton Pask, Annie Trevorah, Eileen White, Amy Hui Li, Aastha Patel, Patricio Villanueva.
Cast a Shadow, The Safehouse, London.
by RCA @rcagraddip
1 - 3 July, 2022
Artists: Susanne Baumann, Raghavi Chinnadurai, Joud Eahmy, Jake Foster, Linnea Fricke, Aamod Gupte, Tina Jane Hatton-Gore, Sejal Jain, Roisin Jones, Amy Hui Li, R.T. Nasser, James Nepaulsingh, Jiva J. Reiley, Manoj Daya Shanta, Stone Stewart, Xiao Tan, Kaipeng Tang, Saeid Zabeti Targhi, Colman Wong, Ria Yukta, Mahsa Zargar.
