Feng Li (1971, Chengdu, China) centers his photographic practice on moments of everyday life captured during his walks through city streets. His photography is marked by irony and irreverence; shaped by a tension between simplicity and eccentricity, it features vivid colors and a surrealist aesthetic that reflects the artist’s personal vision—one drawn to the absurd and the inexplicable elements that inhabit daily life and are translated into striking, evocative images.
Feng Li’s approach blends observation and spontaneity, with a sensitivity close to that of a documentarian, yet filtered through a poetic and ironic gaze. The artist does not follow predetermined scenarios; instead, he waits for elements of the real world to align before him and responds to the moment, transforming the ordinary into unexpected visions.
Mushroom depicts an anonymous figure dressed entirely in black, their face concealed, leaning against a large boulder in what appears to be a park-like setting. The subject holds a mushroom with a long stem and a red, polka-dotted cap. The placement and exaggerated scale of the object introduce an ambiguous and provocative tension into the composition, suggesting a possible phallic resonance. The use of an intense flash and the choice to stage the scene within a natural landscape contribute to a surreal, unsettling atmosphere, as if the image were extracted from a dream.
Feng Li does not plan his shots; the images emerge spontaneously and determine themselves through his gaze. The artist himself has recounted that Mushroom came about almost by chance: while walking through a park with a friend, they came across an enormous mushroom on the ground, picked it up, and photographed it immediately. This simple gesture turns photography into a form of performative art, where real life, the creative act, and irony intersect.
In Mushroom, as in much of Feng Li’s work, everyday life becomes a stage, and the ordinary is charged with wonder. The artist invites us to look at the world with fresh eyes, to perceive the absurd hidden within commonplace things, and to reflect on the thin boundary between reality and fiction.
Feng Li, MUSHROOM, 2021
Photo Print on Fine Art Paper, 120 × 90 cm
Edition: 1-8
07/01/26
