Jia Juan Li Imagined Qing Elites

I only managed to make it to the last day of Jia Juan Li’s exhibition in Hong Kong, which has just finished. However, if any of her work comes to a gallery or museum near you then do get along. Jia grew up near the Forbidden City in Peking and as a girl would wander around imagining the former daily life of the Qing Court. In her work she has recreated her imagined Qing Court in dreamlike canvases that combine traditional images of Qing art with Jia’s experience of working in France and western painting techniques. Some of the images of Qing princesses almost replicate the photographs we have while other of fairies and floral scenes are more obviously imagined. I’m sorry I didn’t get to Hong Kong earlier to write about this but I’m sure Jia has a great career ahead of her and her work will pop up increasingly.