Lamont Gallery Events

Your Blood + Mine: A Meditation on Identity
Justin Li ‘20

Lamont Gallery Foyer
January 23-February 27, 2020
 

Reception: Thursday, January 23, 5:30-7:30 pm*
Artist’s Talk: Friday, January 24, 7-8 pm

Justin Li, a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy, opens his solo exhibition, Your Blood + Mine: A Meditation on Identity, in the Lamont Gallery on January 23, 2020. The exhibition, of oil portraits on canvas, explores identity, coming of age, and being a queer youth of color.

Li’s works also highlight the dichotomy between the masculine and feminine, and how he has struggled with it in light of his queer, Asian, and male identities. Li notes: “Through my portraiture, I hope to tell nuanced stories about identity that we often overlook. By exploring the complexity of intersectionality, I can illuminate the multiple layers of my own identity.”
 

The large scale of his works and his delicate balance of realism and abstraction further impresses the vibrant qualities of his paintings upon the viewer. The largest piece, Self(?) Portrait, is 60” by 48”. The work in the exhibition also addresses LGBT concerns. Li’s title piece, Your Blood + Mine, explores societal stigma and fear of HIV through “bold imagery and iconography.”
 

The curriculum of the Phillips Exeter Academy’s Art Department emphasizes curiosity, self-expression, and empathy in its students and art. Li has taken a number of classes in the department, including the advanced studio course ART 500. All of these qualities are on display in Li’s stirring and poignant pieces. 

In these carefully-selected paintings, Li’s meditation on the self and identity manifests in powerful ways.

More work by Justin Li can be found on his website.

Free and open to the public. Hours: M-F, 8-6, S 10-4. Other times by appointment/PEA card access.

Project advisors: Lamont Gallery and the Exeter Art Department

*Coincides with the reception for the Cut Up/Cut Out exhibition at the Lamont Gallery.

Justin Li, Self(?) Portrait, Oil on canvas. Justin Li, Your Blood + Mine, Oil on canvas

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Hairlines:
Elizabeth Kostina ‘20:

February 10-28, 2020
Academy Building/Class of 1945 Library
Phillips Exeter Academy

Reception & Screening: Tuesday, February 11, 7-8 pm
Academy Building Foyer

Lunchtime Artist’s Talk: Wednesday, February 26, 12:45 pm
Latin Study

(A light lunch will be provided, but space is limited. Please RSVP by February 18 to gallery@exeter.edu.)

It has become easier than ever to present idealized versions of ourselves to the public, but these idealized identities can become spectacles, performances for others as opposed to reflections of our true selves.  

The pressure to present or pass for a mainstream identity (e.g. cisgender or heterosexual identity) is significant and prevalent. People must adhere to certain mannerisms in order to be validated by the dominant culture, perhaps by engaging with stereotypes, by speaking, dressing, or behaving in a manner so that their difference is downplayed. Throughout these code switches, the body and hair remain relatively permanent. Therefore, to change your hair is to make a conscious and curated act of presentation, one more long-lasting than makeup or a style of dress.

The photographic, film, and archival works in Hairlines provides an alternate and more candid view of queer identities by subverting the idealized selves we see on social media, YouTube, filters, and posts. Hairlines focuses on the connections between the external and mental relationship between a queer person’s hair, their gender and/or sexual identity, and the blueprints that inform their current appearance.

Raw. Without makeup, product, accent, or fancy equipment, subject and photographer work together in order to present the ideal self: each unfiltered subject as they are.

Free and open to the public.

Hours: Academy Building: M-F 8-6 pm; other times by appointment or PEA card access.

Library Commons: By appointment or PEA card access

Images from the Hairlines project by Elizabeth Kostina.