Buttered Cat originates from a paradoxical joke: if a cat is strapped back-to-back with a slice of bread buttered side up, which side will land first? Li Zhongshi uses this as a metaphor to challenge the certainty of conventional modes of viewing in painting.
In the works, two images are positioned facing each other vertically on the canvas. During the creative process, the canvas is frequently turned upside down, so the images both disrupt and shape each other as they are constructed. When exhibited, the works retain the random orientation in which they were unpacked, leaving the final presentation to chance; once the exhibition ends and the works are repacked, they return to a suspended, unresolved state.
This is a series of paintings whose completion is continually deferred, oscillating between certainty and uncertainty, questioning the stability of the image and fixed modes of viewing.
In the works, two images are positioned facing each other vertically on the canvas. During the creative process, the canvas is frequently turned upside down, so the images both disrupt and shape each other as they are constructed. When exhibited, the works retain the random orientation in which they were unpacked, leaving the final presentation to chance; once the exhibition ends and the works are repacked, they return to a suspended, unresolved state.
This is a series of paintings whose completion is continually deferred, oscillating between certainty and uncertainty, questioning the stability of the image and fixed modes of viewing.