Tie Li

Generational Transition

Photographic prints

“This piece is a visual document of history unfolding in three generations of my family, starting with my grandma’s family and all her three kids in military uniforms in the 50s. Then, my parent’s generation during the Cultural Revolution. Lastly, my time as an immigrant in America. It shows how each different era leaves its mark, and how each generation tries to make sense for – and connect to – each other.”

– Tie Li

About the artist

Tie Li

I was born in Beijing, China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. My father was a writer in the People’s Liberation Army. The foundational art skills I learned when I was young were heavily influenced by Soviet Russia’s socialist realism, which was the mainstream during the 1960s and 1970s. While attending art classes at the Beijing Youth Palace as a teenager, I became very serious about art. New ideas from the West were slowly seeping into China during this time (early 1980s), and I was deeply influenced by them. At the same time, I was keenly interested in rural China. Packing a few basic art supplies, I traveled to a poor village in Western China and there lived in a cave house for 4 months. The more than 50 woodblock prints I carved there resulted in my very first art show in the Beijing Music Hall Gallery. It was filmed by the Beijing TV station as part of the series, “Contemporary Young Beijing Artists” for my achievement in “accurately reflecting the true essence of village life.”

As a young artist, when China was beginning to open its doors to the rest of the world, I was attracted by the freedom of artistic expression represented by the rebellious art movement known in China as “The Stars”; whose work can be characterized as strongly individualistic and critiquing society and politics of that time. In 1987, I immigrated to the US with the big dream of seeing the world and becoming a great artist. Pretty soon, I realized that dream was going to take a long, long time.

Struggling to make a living during the day, I attended English as a Foreign Language classes at night for a few years before I was able to enroll in some college art classes. Eventually I got into the MFA program at San Diego State University with a focus on painting & photography and a passion for cross-cultural experience and identity. Hiccups in cross-cultural understanding were a daily experience: for instance, when people are greeting each other in China, they often say, “You have gotten a bit fat!” The meaning is, “Life has been good for you.” But this is taken as insensitive and insulting if I were to say that in the US. Another example is that bats symbolize blessings and good fortune in China, but they become terrifying vampires in Western culture. Many of my artworks were inspired from similar shifting contexts and changing perspectives from East to West and back again.

After graduating in 1997, I moved to Chicago, Boston, and then Portland, Oregon–three cities, three years. Over the years, I have taught art classes and worked on commissions, but didn’t forget my artist dream. I tried to show my works in as many places as possible: community colleges, art centers, galleries, and art fairs. Some were successful, others not. But the real outcome of those efforts is that I have developed a strong body of work that takes a personal perspective on issues like how different cultures contradict and influence each other and how collective memories about family, cultural history, and immigrant experiences shapes one’s identity. This body of work is my main source of pride as an artist.

I have taught studio art at the college level, given talks on art and culture at PSU and Lewis & Clark College, and was a visiting lecturer in Creative Methods in the School of Art and Design at Beijing Industrial University. In the past several years, I also began teaching art to children. These classes are mainly focused on interactive projects to boost their creativity and self-expression. We have a lot of fun together and, on the side, I sneak in basic artistic skills. My goals are to nourish their confidence, explore new ideas, and find their inner artistic potential.