Xinchen Li
- Michael Hanna
- May 10
- 2 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Xinchen Li is a metalsmithing sculptor and installation artist as well as a jewelry designer who has exhibited across the United States. Recent exhibitions include Munich Jewelry Week, Greater Denton Arts Council in Texas, ADC Fine Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, Arts + Literature Laboratory as well as Art Lofts Front Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin, Tucson Gem Show in Arizona, New York City Jewelry Week, and Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Xinchen’s awards and recognition include the New York Product Design Award, Muse Design Award, French Design Awards, London Design Awards, and Women’s Jewelry Association June Herman Scholarship. Publications include Time and Memory Book, Cosmopolitan magazine, a feature on artron.net, and Marie Claire magazine.
The various metal sculptures from Xinchen Li’s portfolio are usually either presented as an installation or worn like a piece of jewelry or clothing attire. These fashionable wares usually contain an intricate linearity or angular posture invoking deep contemporary expressions. Xinchen photographs models wearing her metal sculptures as she constructs them in a manner in which they are wearable despite being made out of metal, such as having them hollowed-out in internal structure or flattened like a relief.
With a sense of dominance within a gallery space, when her sculptures are placed as installations, they are typically suspended from the air, rather than displayed in the round on the floor or against the wall. Xinchen’s sculptures typically depict household objects such as a sewing machine with table or a bird’s cage, while her three-dimensional pieces meant to be worn as jewelry or attire resemble angular ergonomic shapes or rectangular geometry. Her wearable art sometimes can be used as a large set of earrings or worn like a collar in a manner similar to a ruff from the 17th century Dutch golden age.
Metal Attire # 1 (pictured above) depicts one of Xinchen’s ruff-like wearable sculptures with angular tendencies and rough, jagged edges. The piece appears simultaneously elegant and aggressive in sharp angles but also harmonious in circular form wrapping around the model’s neck in a celestial manner, like the rings of Saturn or a constellation of the galaxy with the infusion of rich black hues.
Xinchen Li expresses herself through monochromatic angular or linear strips of metal typically imbued with dark tones which reveal a counter-culture contemporary interpretation of jewelry and wearable attire. Her installations, which are usually suspended in the air, have an airy, floating quality enhanced through the hollow forms and linear arrangement. Combined, these works entail a process of revealing the reinterpretation of structure to have celestial or even ethereal qualities in feather-like construction, light visual weight, and composition. Some of her installations such as Reflection (top of article) further convey aesthetics of the cosmos combined with jewelry design components binding celestial elements such as moons and stars to chains and sets of pearls. Xinchen Li brings a sense of mystery, cosmopolitan nature, and fashionable urban aesthetics to sculpture and jewelry design through unfamiliar forms and a variety of approaches with representations which resemble components of the galaxy, household items, or confrontational, angular expressions.
