Li’s path as an artist began with flowers. He first bought them as casting material, then went on to grow his own; in time, growers also began entrusting him with varieties they had raised. Carrying his own time and someone else’s years, these flowers become works through burnout casting: each real flower is set in a mould and burned away in the kiln, leaving a hollow of its exact shape, into which metal is poured. Each flower has only one chance to take form. Waiting at the kiln, he waits not only for the metal to cool, but for the art of a flower blooming again.

The exhibition presents castings of two hundred orchid varieties, many of them rare. Each differs in the thickness of its petals, the markings on its lip, the bearing of its stem; in metal, they offer a new way of seeing. Also on view are more than ten floral sculptures. Where the castings keep each flower as it was, the sculptures reassemble them with metal colouring, creating an artistic language that is Li’s own.