There are figures that move through these paintings like apparitions: elongated bodies, elusive faces, presences suspended somewhere between reality and dream. It is within this unstable territory that the work of Li Ran unfolds in his first solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery in Shanghai. Influenced by European Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, Soviet Revolutionary Realism, and twentieth-century Chinese satirical illustration, Li Ran has developed a practice that moves across painting, video, performance, and writing. His new works revolve around a recurring figure: the “stranger,” understood not as an external presence but as a hidden and unresolved part of the self. In Becoming Wild, the artist revisits a legend he heard as a child: a man who sets out in search of a wild creature gradually transforms into the very thing he is pursuing. In But Your Senses Have Also Fallen, distorted and unstable figures appear on the verge of collapse, suggesting the unsettling possibility that perception itself may become a form of illusion. Rather than telling linear stories, Li Ran uses painting as a space for inner reflection. His images constantly oscillate between recognition and estrangement, turning each canvas into a fragile encounter with something that feels at once familiar and unknown.
