The Prince
LI WEI and LIU ZHIYIN
2016
Copper casting and heat colouring
40.0 × 16.0 × 17.0 cm
Edition of 99
PROFILE

Li Wei and Liu Zhiyin, both born in 1980, are a sculpting art partner. In 2010, they both graduated from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts and studied sculpture and fashion design respectively. After that, Li Wei studied sculpture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a visiting scholar in 2016. Currently, they live and work in Beijing.
Their works are full of strong oriental charm and integrate the artistic essence from Western sculpture to create unique artistic language endowed with great tension. Their collaboration is a perfect match, Li Wei is the ‘body’, Liu Zhiyin is the ’form’, the form gives the body essence, energy (qi), and spirit, and the body is attached to the form. The two must mutually intergrow, and they vividly express this interrelated fate in their artworks. They absorb a wide range of experiences from contemporary sculpture to achieve visualized transcendental spiritual contemplation. The impressions that can be traced to our senses, are intuitively expressed through the fashionable color schemes. The visual language of their artworks are embedded with the spirit of oriental traditional art, as well as the living experience of our times. This poetic nature of works reflects the pursuit of ideals of our generation, which resonates a lot with the audience.
Their works have been collected by many art institutions such as Shanghai Long Museum, Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art and Nanjing Museum, and numerous private collectors.