The Art
of Alyssum
Meet Alyssum.
"I am a QueCK, queer Chinese Kiwi. Newly tapping into the well of experience and fervour of a 28-year-old adult diagnosed neurodivergent individual, I wish to represent facets of the fringe in Tamaki Makaurau, as an artist and model."
"My inspiration is grounded in my unique, yet relatable, life of being an only child to immigrants, having to strive for the myth of normalcy and external excellence."
"The shell I formed, and am coming out of, is a gift I am learning to show, and it feels so good to see the love it garners. I hope in earnest that my work speaks to others on their healing) journey, who have grappled and gained resilience in the face of our "civilised" world. May you see me and my art. May it be found in your local library someday, where you can enjoy it and naturally, wonder."
Pictured: Auckland based Artist; Alyssum Li
MM Mask - 2024, by Alyssum Li. Acrylic on canvas
About 'MM Mask'- 2024
"It is an original acrylic on canvas which I painted using only the prime colours alongside black and white. Correlating with the theme Modern Medieval of this current issue, I aimed to evoke the fortified grit of surviving and shining, in a modern context, where I must clad myself in mask and armour, while I remain poised for your sensory consumption."
Pictured: Alyssum Li and their art; 'MM Mask - 2024. Photographed by Chichi Nyangoni
"When I envision "The Modern Medieval", I hone in on what the words evoke.
Medieval draws a child's fantasy of an armoured knight, ready to lay down their life. In glorious fashion, their blood they let shed to the final drop. Medieval was also for millions of people in certain parts of the world, a historically dark, very dark time.
Modern affords to us dramatic freedoms, at severe costs. We have an unfathomably convenient coverage and connection to others, yet a societal severance from nature."
"Our human potential to create lies on the edge alongside destruction."
"Melding Modern Medieval into my acrylic painting, a self-portrait, I embrace the grandiose with grit. I'm encased, mysterious, plastic and queer."
- Alyssum Li
Pictured: Alyssum Li. Photographed by Chichi Nyangoni
'Growing' - 2018, colour pencil on paper - by Alyssum Li
'August Virgo' - 2018, acrylic on canvas
My art is reluctant to be commodified.
My energy waxes and wanes with the tides and the moon. Sometimes I can be seated in my hermit hole (my bedroom) for hours as a meditation. I am a full-sender, giving everything I've got to polish my humble materials (usually pencil on paper), scratching that itch.I have been privileged with the traditional techniques I learned from the age of five.
At the time I agonised as a child, being sent to classes every Saturday to learn Chinese and math, but Art was what I knew to be the focal point, my fate. I have in the past tutored others and hope to continue spreading the joy of many hours accumulated muscle memory, and aesthetic perspective. Drawn to the divine feminine, a follower of the sacred ways of the matriarch, the elephant, the shadow, yin to yang, powerful when illuminated. I embrace the roots unseparated by sex/gender/sexuality and express myself body and soul.
'Attachment' - 2021, pencil on paper, by Alyssum Li