Andy Nicholas Li is a person practiced and projected by artist and educator Andy Nicholas Li (b. 1995, Chicago, IL).
I am an artist and educator based in Chicago, IL and Ithaca, NY. Reading fiction, psychoanalysis, Buddhist and decolonial methodologies, I play characters to participate in what scholar Chogyam Trungpa calls the “cosmic joke” of a solid ego. Out they come in drawing, sculpture, installation, performance. My work conjures the contradictions of identity and intimacy to uncover the queer and sticky construction of a person.
My work has been exhibited at ACRE Projects, Co-Prosperity, Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), The Soil Factory (Ithaca, NY), Midsumma Festival (Melbourne, Australia), and Granoff Center for the Creative Arts (Providence, RI), among others. Collaborative projects have appeared at places like AS220 (Providence, RI), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Singapore Art Book Fair. A short story of mine, “Prologue to the Death of Julian,” was published in The Notre Dame Review. Some of my paintings are featured in New American Paintings, Midwest #167. I’ve spent time at residencies and workshops at ACRE (Steuben, WI), Hyde Park Art Center, Ox-Bow School of Art (Saugatuck, MI), Ragdale Foundation (Lake Forest, IL), and the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University.
From 2019-2023 I worked at Marwen, where I developed exhibitions and programs for young and emerging artists in Chicago. I hold an AB from Brown University, and I am an MFA candidate in Art at Cornell University.
andy[at]andynli.com