Digitally manipulating images of animals, human nudes and insects to be disproportionate within shabby urban settings, Chinese artist Liu Di highlights the relationship between the the Animate and the Inanimate.

Liu Di Animal Regulations

Liu Di (??) was inspired way back in 2008 when riding a bus through the crowded suburbs of Beijing.Looking out at the decrepit housing blocks, I had a vague but strong feeling that there was something missing between the ground and the sky, he recalls.

He felt the urge to add something that would make people take a fresh, long look at these familiar scenes. The extra thing should be powerful and impossible to ignore, but not something that would make people panic. Eventually I decided it should be a huge animal.

above: Animal Regulation NO.2 C-Print, 80 x 60 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP, 2010

In 2010, using photo editing software, he re-imagined the normal proportions of a panda, a rhinoceros, a monkey, a rabbit, a deer and a frog and inserted them at a gigantic scale into dilapidated urban settings for his first series.

above: Animal Regulation NO.4 C-Print, 80 x 60 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP, 2010

By shoehorning these bottom-heavy beasts into back streets, construction sites and tenement courtyards, he highlights the relationships between nature and human society, between the material world and the intellect, between obedience to and violation of the laws of nature. It is only when our preconceptions are jolted, Liu Di concludes, that we wake up and truly see.

He called this first series “Animal Regulations”

above: Animal Regulation NO.5 C-Print, 80 x 60 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP, 2010

above: Animal Regulation NO.6 C-Print, 80 x 60 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP, 2010

above: Animal Regulation NO.7 C-Print, 80 x 60 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP, 2010

above: Animal Regulation NO.8 C-Print, 80 x 60 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP, 2010

Animal Regulations II

Liu Di then continued the series by playing with the juxtaposition between disproportional human nudes and natural surroundings in 2012:

above: Animal Regulation II NO.9 C-Print, 64 x 120 cm / 85 x 160 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP / 4 + 1 AP, 2012

above: Animal Regulation II NO.10 C-Print, 64 x 120 cm / 85 x 160 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP / 4 + 1 AP, 2012

Animal Regulations III

Then, a beetle in 2013:

above: Animal Regulation ? NO.16, C-Print, 60 x 75 cm / 90 x 114 cm, edition 10 + 2 AP / 4 + 1 AP, 2013

Animal Regulations IV

And his two recent additions to the series, Animal Regulations, created in 2014:

above: Animal Regulation No.18, C-Print, 80 x 76cm, edition 10, 125 x 120cm, edition 10, 2014

above: Animal Regulation NO.19, C-Print, 80 x 100cm, edition 10, 125 x 158cm, edition 10, 2014

C-prints of Liu Di’s Animal Regulations series can be purchased through Pekin Fine Arts

By violating the rules of common sense, we can break the hypnotic trance induced by familiar reality. – Liu Di



Liu Di (above) was born An Kang City, Shanxi, in 1985 and studied at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts from 2004-2009. He is represented by Pekin Fine Arts Gallery and White Rabbit Gallery



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