Yu Lili

Lives and Works in Hangzhou, China

B. 1987

 

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  • Education

    2020 MFA, Mural Painting, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China

    Solo Exhibitions

    2024Spatial Images, Soofa Gallery, Shanghai
    2024Re·See, SEE ANN, Moganshan, Zhejiang
    2023Hui Bo Xiao Xing, Guyang City Art Museum, Guizhou
    2022Inside and Outside Time, Yuting Art Museum, Hangzhou
    2019Empty Gate, China Mineral Pigment Painting Art Museum, Hangzhou
    2018Mineral Pigment Works, China Mineral Pigment Painting Art Museum, Hangzhou
    2013Philosophy of Enclosed Space, Senso Gallery, Hangzhou

    Selected Group Exhibitions

    2025 Asian Emerging Artists Academic Exhibition, AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong
    2024Future—Brilliant Constellations of Chinese Contemporary Art, Gao’s Gallery, Taiyuan Art Center
    2024 Zhejiang 15th Fine Arts Exhibition, Zhejiang
    2023 China–Japan–Korea Contemporary Art Exhibition, Guizhou Art Museum
    2023 New Youth Art Invitational, Guizhou Art Museum; Zunyi Art Museum
    2023 Contemporary Gongbi Youth Research Exhibition, Square Art Museum (798), Beijing
    2023Minerals in Motion, China Geological Museum, Beijing
    2016 Asia Youth Artists Nomination Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing
    2015 INTER-YOUTH International Youth Painting Exhibition, China Academy of Art Museum, Hangzhou
    2014 Nanjing International Art Exhibition, Nanjing
    2010Silk Road Pilgrimage, China Academy of Art Museum, Hangzhou

  • Awards & Honors

    2024 First Prize, 6th “Art and Ocean” National Art Competition
    2020 Silver Award, Lin Fengmian Creation Prize, China Academy of Art
    2019 Selected Work, 13th National Fine Arts Exhibition (Beijing)
    2018 Gold Award, 13th National Mineral Pigment Painting Exhibition, Hangzhou
    2017 Silver Award, 12th National Mineral Pigment Painting Exhibition, Hangzhou
    2011 Gold Award, Oriental Colors China Mineral Pigment Painting Exhibition

    Museum & Institutional Collections

    China Academy of Art
    China Academy of Sciences
    Fangyuan Art Museum
    Hezhi Art Museum
    Additional private and institutional collections

Yu Lili holds an MFA in Mural Painting from the China Academy of Art and is a National Arts Fund mentor in mineral-pigment painting. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the China Academy of Art, the China Academy of Sciences, and several contemporary art museums. She has presented solo exhibitions in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Guizhou, and has received major national awards including Gold and Silver Prizes at the National Mineral Pigment Painting Exhibitions and recognition in the 13th National Art Exhibition. Her practice extends to large-scale public art, contributing to murals for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and producing works collected by the National Museum of China. She has exhibited internationally across Asia, including at Today Art Museum (Beijing), the Nanjing International Art Exhibition, China–Japan–Korea Contemporary Art Exhibition, and the Asian Emerging Artists’ Exhibition at Hong Kong Asia World-Expo.

Yu Lili’s practice revives the mineral approach of ancient mural traditions—particularly the fifth-century Mogao Grottoes—within a contemporary visual and conceptual framework. Working with hand-ground lapis, azurite, malachite, quartz, and other geological pigments, she stops the grinding process precisely at the moment each crystal’s lattice remains structurally intact. This micro-scale preservation gives her surfaces their signature character: visible crystalline grains that assert their own materiality and refractive logic.

Applied to raw linen or hemp paper whose natural fibres echo the mineral weave, her pigments form layered, matte terrains that shift chromatically with changes in light and perspective. The effect is a surface that is simultaneously geological and optical—stone reimagined as living colour.

The Cosmology

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