SHANGHAI, CHINA.-m97 Gallery presents "Trapped", a solo photography exhibition of large color portraits by Chengdu-based photographer Li Jun. Li Jun's new "Trapped 2" color photographs are an extension from his first body of black-and-white portraits ("Trapped"), where the photographer documented the isolation and aspirations of amateur Sichuan Opera performers, often with characters in full dress exiting backstage, bringing a fleeting sense of emotion to the photographer's works and the lives of his subjects. Li Jun's "Trapped 2" color photographs further explores the sentiment and isolation of the individual trapped within the many layers of society and the human condition. Unlike other approaches to portraiture, Li Jun's photographs do not portray the expression of the face, but focus on the body language of his subjects to bring the viewer a more estranged sense of physical, emotional or psychological isolation and entrapment.
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Deliberately facing away from the camera, the subjects seem to be rejecting the connection with the artist and the outside world, and in turn resisting the viewer, giving the photographs a guarded sense of human sorrow, loss, shame, frustration or anger. As the artist says: "I hope that these color photographs are closer to the various layers of reality than my previous black-and-white work. The photographs still maintain their physical meaning - bunched up, stuck together, and sturdy, but with a more fragile and wounded inner core. "

Born in Chongqing (China), Li Jun first studied in the College of Literature and Journalism of Chongqing Normal University, then turned his attention to photography. He also worked in the photography department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He now lives and works in Chengdu (China).