NEW YORK, NY.- Alisan Fine Arts presents Finding the Balance, Li Hongwei’s first New York City solo exhibition, on view from November 13th, 2026 through December 23rd, 2026. Based between Princeton, NJ and Beijing, China, Li is a unique artistic voice within the Chinese diaspora. He has taken the production of Chinese porcelain and metalwork into his own hands, harnessing these mediums to create his own contemporary vocabulary.
In 2005, Li Hongwei left China to study ceramic art at the New York State College of Ceramics (Alfred University), receiving his MFA in 2007 and continuing to teach in New York for several years. At the same time, Li embarked on a remarkable exploration of ancient Chinese ceramics, and he began to fuse porcelain with contemporary materials, developing the various series of artworks on view in the current exhibition.
One of the artist’s more significant discoveries involves the unpredictable glaze effects that appear in his ceramics—crystalline blooms that emerge at specific temperatures, or ‘atmospheres’, that he engineers within his kilns. These effects have existed since the Song Dynasty, although they have only been appreciated by a small audience over the centuries; Li’s efforts to master these crystalline glazes have led to works that are unlike any that have come before. His sculpture “transcends the monochrome examples of the Song dynasty, yet is more organic and mysterious than the Qing Dynasty examples, decorated with underglaze cobalt blue or copper red” (Andrew L. Maske, University of Kentucky).
In terms of contemporary materials, Li’s medium of choice is stainless steel. He fuses, stacks, and embeds his ceramics into the highly reflective metal, using the light from the polished steel to exaggerate and accentuate his ceramic figures. In his Xuan series, the fluid, composite forms appear as water droplets frozen in time; in Upwelling of Gravity, the ceramic and steel appear to rise upward from their base. His perfectly tilted Origin works are as playful as they are regal, and their egg-like forms are echoed in Allegory of Balance, his most monumental body of work, made up of totemic structures that resemble polished, stacked stones.
This exhibition features a new series for the artist, as well—Li calls it Empty Vessel. The series takes the most fundamental form of vessel—the bowl—as its starting point, yet deliberately dissolves its functional reference, transforming it from an object of containment into a structure about emptiness itself. The sculptural wall pieces recall the concave, mirrored works of Anish Kapoor, but their curved, ceramic edges imbue the series with a sense of warmth, juxtaposing the polished steel surface in the middle of each vessel. According to Li, “The vessel exists through emptiness, and emptiness becomes visible through the vessel. The series translates the Eastern philosophical notion of ‘emptiness as receptivity’ into a contemporary language, allowing form to recede before space itself, so that ‘empty’ becomes the true subject.”
Li Hongwei is a contemporary artist working between Beijing and New York, whose practice bridges the gap between Chinese heritage and Western modernism. He is widely recognized for his innovative mastery of porcelain and stainless steel—a combination that defines his signature aesthetic.
Drawing inspiration from the crystalline glazes of China’s historical dynasties, Hongwei transforms functional ceramic traditions into abstract, non-functional sculpture. In series like Allegory of Balance and Upwelling of Gravity, his ovoid forms reflect the virtues of harmony and simplicity while engaging with the cold, industrial strength of steel. This dialogue between the historical and the contemporary empowers the porcelain, giving it a new voice in the modern cultural landscape.
In his recent Fragments series, Hongwei explores the unity of opposing concepts. By reassembling porcelain shards, he turns fragility into a strength. While a fragment often represents loss or disorder, Hongwei uses these pieces to construct a new visual language of wholeness. Through his work, chaos and order coexist, and the "contemporary" nature of his art transcends mere technique. It becomes a conceptual exploration of the common human experience, inviting viewers to find unity in the shattered and beauty in the transformed.
His works have been acquired by The British Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Israel Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Philadelphia Museum of Art, etc. His works have been exhibited in a number of international art institutions, including the National Art Museum of China, The US Embassy, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Dublin Castle in Ireland, etc. Hongwei holds a bachelor’s degree in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing; a master’s in ceramic art from the New York State College of Ceramics at the Alfred University at Alfred, NY. As a visiting artist, he has been invited to give lectures in different institutions, including Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
