Li Hei Di on Embodiment and Transformation at Pace Gallery

Description

Tongues of Flare at Pace Gallery marks Li Hei Di’s first solo exhibition with the gallery since joining in 2024. The show brings together 11 new paintings created in 2025 and a recent wood sculpture. Li’s canvases depict ghostly, translucent bodies emerging and receding within abstract forms, meditating on self-discovery, desire and the evolving nature of identity.

Themes of embodiment, displacement and intimacy thread through the works, with water’s fluidity serving as a metaphor for transformation and growth. Literary references, from Georges Bataille’s Eroticism: Death and Sensuality to Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby, inform a nuanced exploration of sexuality, monstrosity and transfiguration. The wood sculpture complements these ideas, depicting a body at rest drifting through the unpredictable world of the unconscious.

After its run in Hong Kong, the exhibition will travel to the Pond Society for Shanghai Art Week, extending Li’s exploration of internal and external worlds. Recent group exhibitions and institutional collections including LACMA, the Yuz Museum and Hepworth Wakefield highlight Li’s presence in the international art world.