Effie Wanyi Li's 'Bounded Trace' debuts in China at Spurs Gallery

Editor's note: Spurs Gallery presents "Bounded Trace," the first solo show in China by London-based painter Effie Wanyi Li from Oct. 18 to Nov. 30, 2025. The exhibition shows five new paintings that express emotion as a "paused space," where shapes and movements reach out toward feelings but are often halted by thinking.

These works emerge after a year of personal recuperation and trauma-work. Li refers to these new paintings as marking a stage she calls "suspended." Li's practice centers on this stage of suspension where the body serves as a perceptual field. In this unique manner, sensations or feelings are entangled with thoughts, and from that art can be created. The artist intends for viewers to pause in this unresolved state and view the paintings as a record of inner feeling, not a final conclusion.

This photo, taken on Nov. 5, 2025, captures the gallery entrance to Spurs Gallery II, where the painting announces Effie Wanyi Li's debut China presentation. It frames the viewer for the show's restrained, intimate scale. [Photo by Liu Ziying/China.org.cn]