Li Hei Di was born in Shenyang, China, studied at Maryland Institute College of Art, and Chelsea College of Art, and received her BA in Fine Art in 2020. Li Hei Di is currently completing her MA in Painting at Royal College of Art in London.

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The sensuality and romance of seduction manifested in her artworks through Li Hei Di’s fluent intricate strokes, and the mating dance of colours atop her medium. Within her pieces flows ambiguity to eroticism which comes back to romance, imbued with fear and melancholy, and fragmented bodies that flash in dreams. Her artistic style is inspired by the suggested eroticism in Chinese literature and cinema, with its subtlety and provocation, invoking a cinematic choreography in her brushstrokes.

Li Hei Di’s pieces show or describe things that are not exactly what they are, as often within it lies fragmented bodies obscured in the freedom of mark making; Bearing a dance between abstraction and figuration, which is a reflection of the veiled queer identity in a heteronormative society.

As a whole, this artistic exploration of this interest may serve as a temporary getaway from the very different reality of delicate restrictions or repressions of the level of openness she would like to embody in her everyday identity. A level where the details of subtle sexuality that is well-woven in the little mundane everyday moments, is celebrated instead.