Li Huasheng (1944-2018) was a classically-trained ink painter who explored the shared phenomenology between mind-hand embodiment in classical brush and ink practice in calligraphy and landscape painting and time- and process-based practices employed in contemporary art. Li's practice includes processual grid paintings, abstract ink landscapes, photography and ink-and-paper-based installations.

In 1998 Li Huasheng turned aside from an established career as a highly talented and innovative landscape painter celebrated both in China and overseas. Reinventing himself as an artist, he contemplated the meaning and purpose of both art and of the creative process. The new approach at which he arrived consists of reflecting on a meditative space via the disciplined rendering of grids — even horizontal lines of ink layered over even vertical lines. This practice has occupied him for over a decade. While it is true that the grid paintings subvert tradition by suppressing the expressive quality of the line, they reveal the artist's spirit or qi in a most subtle manner. Holding the brush as only a painter trained through decades of practice is able, Li Huasheng deploys each line in a state of meditative concentration, so that any minor fluctuations are directly attributable to fluctuations in qi, which connects to stamina, mood, attention, and general health.