THROUGH THE GLOW
New York City, October 2025
Stepping into Neon Haze, NIANXIN LI’s first solo exhibition at New York’s Uffner & Liu gallery, feels like entering a world where light has learned to breathe. Her canvases pulse with disco-born colours – synthetic purples, acidic greens, radiant flashes that flicker like the memory of a dance floor. Yet beneath the glow, something more elusive emerges: translucent membranes, shell-like forms, shadows that spiral inward toward soft voids. Li is not simply painting atmospheres but staging encounters between intimacy and estrangement, transparency and concealment. In her words, privacy in contemporary life has become a “state of hyper-visibility” – seen, but never truly known. This paradox animates her practice, where every luminous gesture conceals as much as it reveals. Shadowplay spoke with the New York–based artist about rhythm, meditation, fragility, and the seduction of colour.
Right Hunger, Laid Bare 1, 2025, pastel on sandpaper mounted on panel
Congratulations on your show, Neon Haze. I wanted to start with the title, because it presents such an evocative juxtaposition between radiance and obscurity. What draws you to this kind of tension?
Colour is very important to me. I organise colour as if I’m writing a melody or cooking a meal – every shade is a note, every light has its place. In a work like Us, Untamed, for example, you see many different colours of light. If you cover part of the painting, the entire atmosphere shifts. The danger for me is making the palette too harmonious, too balanced. I need that punch of contrast to keep the energy alive.
Some of your colours recall disco lights – they are intense, rhythmic, almost cinematic. What do they mean to you?
Once, I went to a disco and found it surprisingly meditative. The music was so loud, but through dancing, I felt calm; it was almost like a different kind of meditation. That experience stayed with me. My paintings are about the relationship between myself and my surroundings, how we intertwine. The lights carry that sense of immersion and rhythm.
Right Silence, Split Open, 2025, acrylic on canvas
The central forms in your work – these shell-like structures – are fascinating. How did you come to focus on them, and what do they represent?
I trust my visual language. I often paint from imagination, even if the subject exists in real life – like the snails or shells – because I want to capture an impression, not a direct likeness. In earlier works, the animal forms were more obvious. Later, I began breaking them down into elements: a soft body and a hard shell. That freed me from representation and let me focus on relationships – the tension between fragility and protection, between forms and their environments. It also prevents the viewer from being distracted by familiar objects.
Your paintings suggest both the experiences of meditation and alienation. How do you think about alienation in your practice?
For me, painting is like travelling: I move forward and don’t look back. My work evolves with my relationships and experiences. At first, I explored intimacy and family. Over time, I realised I had to confront myself, my subconscious, and the parts of my life I rejected. In this show, the question shifted from what I want to paint to what I resist painting. The things I reject often push me into the next stage of my practice.
Right Unfurnished Place, 2025, acrylic on canvas
The show’s press release mentioned the idea that privacy now exists in a state of hyper-visibility. How does this connect to your use of transparency?
Transparent materials reveal everything inside – they don’t allow hiding. Glass or plastic, for example, lets the gaze pass through but blocks touch, breath, scent. It seems open, but it is actually isolating. That paradox fascinates me: the feeling of exposure and distance at once.
Do you think of your paintings as portraits, landscapes, or something else?
I see them as family portraits. More recently, they’re also self-portraits, but not just of me – also of my environment. The plants in my studio, for instance, I influence them, and they influence me back. They are part of my family, too.
Left Untamed, details, 2025, acrylic on canvas
What does beauty mean to you?
Beauty changes for me all the time. Sometimes it’s plants, sometimes something else. I tend to get obsessed, then quickly shift to something new. It’s never fixed.
After this chapter, where do you see your work going?
I always carry something forward from one stage to the next. From my last show, I kept the human body forms. In this one, the neon lights became central. In future work, I might change their shapes but keep the intensity of the colour.
Left Hunger, Laid Bare 2, details, 2025, pastel on panel
Right The Howl, details, 2025, acrylic on canvas
Which artists do you admire, and how have they influenced you?
I admire Jane Dickson. I love the rough texture of her paintings, which is very different from mine. My surfaces are smooth, almost hiding me. In her work, I can see every brushstroke, every decision – it feels intimate. That openness is something I want to explore. In this show, I included pastel works on wood and paper, made with my fingers. Unlike airbrush, which never touches the canvas, these works are direct, tactile, and intimate.
The exhibition Neon Haze by Nianxin Li is on view at New York’s Uffner & Liu Gallery until November 1st, 2025.
Left Us, Untamed, 2025, acrylic on canvas
Right Us, Unseen, 2025, acrylic on canvas
Interview by Martin Onufrowicz
Artworks pictures by Justin Craun