on show until November 22 at the Painting Center (Project Room), 52 Greene Street, between Broome and Grand, 212-343-1060
Ying Li’s attack in these ten charcoal portraits shows the same unique blend of impetuosity and rigor as her paintings. Outlines criss-cross and flail, contours twist, and details emerge and dissolve without discernable method. And yet we’re left, remarkably, with likenesses that seem all the more human for the struggle. Seldom is orneriness so empathetic, and ferocity so astute.
This was an artcritical PIC in November 2008.
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