Between Sight and Stillness

ART LABOR Gallery is pleased to present its third solo exhibition with Xi’an-born artist Li Tao, following The Floating Drama (2023) and Autumn in Full Bloom (2024). The exhibition continues the gallery’s close collaboration with the artist, showcasing a new body of works that expand upon his long-standing engagement with ink painting, while deepening his exploration of life’s most ordinary yet profound subjects. The exhibition will be held from September 6th to October 26th.

For Li Tao, painting begins with the everyday — the fruits he eats, the flowers he tends, the simple objects that surround him. What may appear commonplace becomes, in his eyes, a gateway to reflection, a way to “see the large through the small.” Drawing upon a lineage of Chinese literati who imbued still life with philosophical meaning, Li Tao honors tradition while reimagining it in a distinctly contemporary language. He describes his work as an expression of “love and understanding for life,” where a single fruit or blade of grass carries the vitality of existence itself.

His practice remains rooted in the discipline of ink painting, a medium he has devoted himself to since his studies at the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts. Yet Li Tao persistently disrupts conventions: he merges ink with bold pigments and acrylics, incorporating elements of Chinese folk art into compositions alive with brilliant colors, tempered by gold, silver, grey, and black. The result is a harmony of exuberance and restraint, playfulness and reverence — a visual language that captures both the unruly vitality of nature and the artist’s search for balance.

If earlier works often carried darker tones, this new series radiates brightness and joy. Each painting unfolds like a moment of blossoming, a celebration of abundance, resilience, and transformation. In them, Li Tao reminds us that painting, like life, is not only about form and technique, but also about presence — about being attentive to the overlooked, and allowing it to bloom.

Born in Xi’an in 1981, Li Tao graduated from the Xi’an Academy of Fine Art in 2003 with a degree in Chinese ink painting. His work has been widely exhibited in China and is included in the permanent collection of the Shaanxi Province Art Museum in Xi’an. Selected solo exhibitions include Between Sight and Stillness, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai (2025); Autumn in Full Bloom, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai (2024); The Floating Drama, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai (2023); Rise, Aura Gallery, Beijing (2015); Sapiens, Aura Gallery, Taipei (2015); Space Oddity, Aura Gallery, Taipei (2014); Pilgrimage, Aura Gallery, Beijing (2014).