Them

Contemporary artist Li Kejin's practice centers on an in-depth investigation into alienation and mimicry. His paintings directly address the mental conditions and identity reconstruction of individuals in the digital age.

Hol is pleased to present Them, a solo exhibition by Li Kejin, in March 2026, featuring a series of recent, entirely new works.

"Them" first refers to the figures in the paintings that hovers between human form and alien creatures: they retain sufficient traces of humanity, yet generate an uncanny sense of alienation through distortions in form, skin, expression and posture. It is within this tension between the familiar and the strange that emotions become visible: despair, panic and anger are not articulated through narrative, but condensed into a sustained psychological shift via subtle deviations in faces and gazes, as well as extreme close-ups and distortions.

The artist describes his working process for this series as "Entanglement - Liberation - Divergence": beginning with repeated layering and internal struggle, he gradually defines boundaries, allowing the figures to overflow and roam freely within the canvas. This trajectory also forms the progression of Them on both visual and psychological levels.

Them intentionally retains a raw, rugged quality and layers of overpainting, presenting a texture of "post-artificial imagery": highly saturated, almost fluorescent colors wrap danger within stimulation.Viewing becomes a delayed recognition: the harderyou try to classify them as "human" or "non-human", the more they slip away from your experience.

When "him/her/them" are juxtaposed, the boundaries of the subject become unstable. How we name these figures often reveals how we name ourselves. Them does not offer answers through myth or fable, but leaves the question within the contemporary structure of viewing - in the space between viewer and painting.

Overall, Them represents a more "formed" milestone in Li Kejin's recent painterly oeuvre: it advances his longstanding concerns with narrative tension and psychological alienation, shifting from the monstrous and allegorical within individual canvases to a more coherent "construction of a collective world".