LIXU ART

Everyone Wants to Be Someone Else

King and Crown
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
40.6 × 50.8 cm
2026

Li Xu’s recent paintings examine the instability of identity through staged figures and fractured spatial constructions.

Neither the clown nor the king occupies a fixed position. They function instead as projections—images of desire, authority, and self-invention.

The crown becomes less a symbol of power than a device of performance.

Identity remains suspended between what one is and what one imagines oneself to be.



ChineseContemporaryArt Painting ArtCollector ArtGallery NewYorkArt VillageOneArt

Waiting Backstage

Sometimes the backstage is more interesting than the stage.

2026 · Acrylic and oil on canvas · 16 × 20 in.

Installation view, VillageOneArt, New York.

Freeze
2026 · Acrylic and oil on canvas · 16 × 20 in.

Somewhere between still life and emotional debris.

Oil, bodies, shadows, scattered objects—
everything feels slightly unstable, as if the room remembers something before I do.


Dogs of the Dark
Chelsea, New York

Swift Rise to Nobility
2026
Acrylic and oil on canvas
16 × 20 in.

Everyone seems to understand the situation.

No further explanation is needed.


Dogs of the Dark
Chelsea, New York

Agave
2026
Acrylic and oil on canvas
16 × 20 in.

Two figures standing near the flowers,
as if they were waiting for a role to begin.

Something about the scene feels composed,
slightly theatrical,
and quietly unstable.


Dogs of the Dark
Chelsea, New York

He didn’t fall in love with his reflection.

He fell into the illusion around it.

Narcissus
2026
Acrylic and oil on canvas
16 × 20 in.

The water here is not a lake anymore.

It feels closer to a constructed dream —
something seductive,
bright,
and slightly unstable.


Dogs of the Dark
Chelsea, New York

Painting changed while being painted.

A Blonde Wig with Rabbit Ears
2026
Acrylic and oil on canvas
122 × 152 cm (48 × 60 in.)

Many people’s first response to this painting is:
“elegant.”

But the longer you stay with it,
the more unstable it becomes.

The figure keeps shifting.
So does the space.


Dogs of the Dark
Chelsea, New York

⸻

Seeking Rabbit Hole
2026
Acrylic and oil on canvas

⸻

The braid keeps extending —
almost becoming a line.

It connects parts,
and pulls the eye away.

The body holds still,
but this line keeps going.

Things don’t fully align.
They just coexist.

What holds a space in place—
and what quietly breaks it?

42nd St. at 10:10 PM

2026
Acrylic and oil on canvas
40 × 50 in

Part of the “Dogs of Dark” series, this work situates space not as a passive backdrop but as an active structural condition. The figure, the animal, and the surrounding environment form a shifting configuration in which spatial order is continuously unsettled and reconstituted.

Rather than opposing one another, control and instability coexist within the same pictorial field. Gestures, gazes, and spatial alignments slip and realign, producing a state in which the image remains suspended—never fully fixed, always in the process of becoming.

Dogs of Dark listed on Artforum.