Curated by Sharon Corwin, Carolyn Muzzy Director and Chief Curator and Gregory Williams, Assistant Director for Operations
Lihua Lei’s work explores the sense of bounty and loss inherent to our bodily condition. Working in the gap between the figurative and the abstract, Lei uses diverse materials to allude to the body: a pool of carnelian colored thread suggests blood; a tube of cloth winds through the landscape like an esophagus or a birthing canal; a tree’s knotty irregularities imply scars, burns, or tumors upon a torso. For currents3, Lei explores memory as a bodily phenomenon, exemplified by the phantom limb. How does our body remember, or feel, what it has lost? Lei’s installation invites the viewer to reflect upon the vulnerabilities and transformations of the body.
Banner Image: Lihua Lei, Phantom Pain (Detail), 2006, Installation in three parts at Colby College, Image courtesy of the artist