“As long as I open this red door, I can find my mother.”

In this work, artist Si Rong Li continues her previous Murmuration series, shifting the focus from the relationship between the individual and the collective back to the self. The front door of a house becomes both an entrance and a threshold, a passage leading inward to one's inner self. The 'mother' represents the origin of everything, the starting point to all that the artist has become. Building on her earlier mobile works, Li combines stainless steel wire with hand-dyed air clay. The mobile acts as a hanging landscape, representative of the artists inner world. Li personally colours the clay, shaping it into organic, curvilinear forms that evoke a sense of life and movement. The red door within the sculpture echoes the door depicted in the painting, creating a visual and conceptual connection between the two pieces.

Li Si Rong (b.1994, Taiwan) is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She has an MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland (2021). Li received the Creative New Zealand Early Career Fund - Toi Tipu Toi Rea in 2024. Li’s work is composed of daily debris, objects and theoretical reflection. She focuses specifically on everyday life, dreams and the relationship between humanity and things. She works across diverse mediums from painting, sculpture, photography and installation. Recent exhibitions include RM Gallery and Project Space (2024), Sanderson Contemporary (2024/2023), Studio One Toi Tu (2023), Depot Artspace (2022).