LI RAN: THE SIGNS ARE PRESENT

LISSON Gallery is pleased to present The Signs are Present

June 27 – August 23, 2025

The first solo exhibition in Los Angeles by Li Ran. Comprising nine, recent, oil-on-canvas works including some of the largest paintings the artist has made to date this exhibition marks a discernable evolution in Li’s practice, wherein his focus has shifted toward the material and formal qualities of painting. Known for his cross disciplinary approach, which spans video, performance, writing, and installation, Li often interrogates systems of ideology, cultural translation, and intellectual history.

In this new body of work, he deliberately tempers the satirical and conceptual strategies that defined his earlier projects, where appropriation and narrative construction played central roles in favor of a quieter, more ambiguous visual language. Here, narrative intent becomes more elusive, embedded subtly rather than explicitly articulated.

This body of work is also marked by a cohesive and contemplative painterly language non polemical, free of antagonism, and unburdened by historical hierarchies of authority or precedence. Li offers viewers a personal and introspective point of entry: his daily studio ritual of opening the Bible and engaging with spiritual reflection.

Yet, despite this shift toward introspection and formal cohesion, narrative traces persist. Through symbolic elements, or ‘signs’ such as the scattered belongings of a deceased false teacher in The Empty Tomb (2024), or the ritualistic gestures surrounding cremation in They Swear, Dance, Alongside Miracle (2024), an underlying, unspoken storyline continues to course through Li Ran’s paintings, offering viewers interpretive depth beneath the surface of painterly abstraction.