Li Yiwen: Turbulence
2021.11.20, 4pm. – 2022.1.9
Artists: Li Yiwen

Turbulence is everywhere. Clouds fly across the atmosphere, rapid torrents in rivers, thick fog dispersed on chimneys, blood surging in arteries... The prediction and calculation of it are still one of the unsolved classic problems in physics.


I use the concept of “turbulence” in this exhibition to express that the advancement and evolution of art practice and the artist’s life experience are like a continuous river. The life under the mud and sand will grind one like ragged underwater rocks, blocking and affecting the speed and direction of the water flow. The laminar flow is cut into the flocculent flow, and the kinetic energy and the potential energy compete to form a turbulent flow. Being trapped in it disorients us. Even the smallest disturbance is continuously amplified in the turbulence, causing the world’s eternal flow and generation.


However, when we wake up all our perception to feel the dizziness and absence in the turbulence, a new ability about intuition, imagination, and perception is acquired.


In turbulence, the emotions and the memories of the past are consistently flickering in the flow and the dissipation of energy.


In turbulence, memories can bring back the past and imagination can bring the future to the present. Time and memory at every latitude are entangled, one after another.


In turbulence, every whirlpool is a chain of pearls, pebbles, and debris polished by the river of memories. Like a spring, a hundred thoughts are blooming.


Turbulence cannot be fully quantified or analyzed. It is sublimated chaos, just like the fascination of art cannot be explained by language. Masterpieces are made by nature, and artists can only wish for their luck.


In turbulence, I travel back and forth, and the road is hindered and long.