Dai Li: Tale of "Small yet Great'

Unlike portraits and caricatures, I regard my ceramics creations as fictional. They are not you or me, or anyone we know, but they may contain qualities you and I are familiar with. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Dai Li, 2023

Dai Li was born in Sichuan, China in 1987. She moved to Australia in 2009 and now lives and works on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.  Dai Li is an artist mainly working on ceramics and watercolours. She graduated from Jindezhen Ceramic Institute majoring in ceramic arts in 2009.

Dai’s artworks are drawn from everyday life and the art and culture of the world at large. Her work focuses on people’s emotional states, how these manifest externally, and the mystery of how they arrived at this point. It is this same quality of intrigue that she seeks to engender in the experience of her own artwork, for the viewers of her work to relate to and reflect upon their own experiences. The characters often seem quirky, humorous, childish but thought-provoking.

Dai held her first solo exhibition ‘Wonderland’ in Brisbane in 2010 after her arrival to Australia and the same year she started exhibiting with Heiser Gallery. Since 2010, Dai has had numerous solo and group exhibitions with many commercial galleries, regional galleries and institutions.

Dai’s works are in the Public Collections of QUT Art Museum, Museum of Brisbane, Queensland and Ipswich Art Gallery and also many private collectors from Australia, China, Hong Kong and the UK. Recently, Dai’s work featured in The Journal of Austrian Ceramics’ July 2019 issue.