Nerissa Mengyi Li "Kan Shan Shui: Dunhuang 01"
Nerissa Mengyi Li "Kan Shan Shui: Dunhuang 01" 2026
Digital Archival Pigment Print
Dimensions: 36 x 20 inches
Limited Edition of 5
Signed on Verso
Nerissa Mengyi Li is a cross-disciplinary artist working between China and London. Born in Chongqing and raised in Shenzhen, she graduated from Istituto Marangoni. Her practice is shaped by the contrast between Shenzhen’s rapid technological development and Chongqing’s enduring cultural heritage, prompting questions around time, memory, technology, and what it means to remain human in a rapidly changing world.
Working across moving image, immersive environments, and public art, Li employs Practice-based Research and World-building to explore the relationship between humanity and the world. Her work has been exhibited in China, the UK, France, Italy, and the US, including at a collateral event of the Venice Biennale and the Musée du Louvre in Paris. In 2026, she was selected for LUMINEX 4.0: Resonance of Connection in Los Angeles and The “Dream” Issue & Exhibition by The Untitled Magazine and The Untitled Space in Tribeca. She continues interdisciplinary research collaborations with scholars at the University of Cambridge and University of the Arts London (UAL).
Artist Statement
“My practice stems from a profound inquiry into how human beings perceive, relate, and remain genuinely "human" in an era of rapid technological transformation. Growing up in Shenzhen, I witnessed hyper-speed urban development and technological iterations unfold within decades—a process that traditionally might span centuries. This hyper-velocity stood in sharp contrast to my birthplace, Chongqing, where I repeatedly returned to face historical heritage like the Dazu Rock Carvings, created across generations over hundreds of years. Experiencing this intense friction between extreme velocity and deep temporality became the critical threshold for my artistic practice. It prompted me to reflect on the temporal legacies of the modern and ancient, East and West: as intelligent technologies intervene ever more deeply in human perception, memory, and relationships, how do we reconnect with ourselves, others, and the world?
Employing Practice-based Research and World-building as core methodologies, I approach art-making as an ongoing inquiry into existence. Central to my visual language is the recurring motif of "Eyes upon Hands" , derived from the Thousand-Hand Guanyin at the Dazu Rock Carvings. For me, "Eyes upon Hands" is not merely a static cultural icon, but an active perceptual structure—a synthesis of action and awareness, bodily engagement and inward contemplation. The hand represents how we reach out and enter the world; the eye signifies how we observe, reflect, and recognize ourselves through that interaction.
In this exhibition, this perceptual structure maps a philosophical progression across two key works from my Kan Shan Shui series:
* Kan Shan Shui: Dunhuang represents the pivotal transition from observing the external world into exploring the internal universe and subconscious dreamscape ("seeing mountains as no longer mountains"). Echoing the Diamond Sutra’s teaching that "all phenomena are like dreams and illusions," it reinterprets ancient cave murals through virtual sculpture, turning inward to construct a space where cultural memory and self-introspection converge.
* Kan Shan Shui: Blue manifests the ultimate culmination into Tian Ren He Yi (天人合一—the non-dualistic unity of humanity and nature). Merging the terrain and mist of Chongqing and London with posthuman aesthetics, it constructs an uncanny perceptual field where rigid boundaries between subject, body, environment, and intelligent systems dissolve into a single, fluid, self-evolving living system.
Together, these works map a perceptual journey from internal dream reflection to cosmic re-fusion, inviting viewers to re-examine how we perceive reality and reconnect with ourselves, others, and the world in a technological age." - Nerissa Mengyi Li