Li Hei Di

Li Hei Di was born in 1997 in Shenyang, China. They left home as a teenager for a one-year student exchange program in Ohio, then studied at Idyllwild Arts in Southern California before continuing at the Maryland Institute College of Art. They completed a BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, in 2020, and an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London in 2022. They now live and work in London.

Their practice centers on painting, built from glowing, layered surfaces and dreamlike figuration. Their first solo exhibition, Tits at Dawn, opened at Linseed Projects in Shanghai in 2022, followed by solo shows at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles (Oscillating Womb, 2023) and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London (700 Nights of Winter, 2024). In 2024 Li Hei Di joined Pace Gallery, and in 2025 presented Tongues of Flare, a solo exhibition at Pace's Hong Kong space, alongside a first institutional solo exhibition at Pond Society in Shanghai. In 2024 they were named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia.

Institutional recognition for Li Hei Di has built rapidly and in parallel with the market. Artsy named them to its Vanguard list of artists to watch in 2023. Forbes included them on its 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2024. Pace Gallery's decision to add Li Hei Di to its roster in 2024, and to give them a solo exhibition in Hong Kong the following year, has been widely covered as a marker of a major gallery moving early on a young painter. No verbatim critical assessment from a named critic at a major outlet could be confirmed for this profile.

Li Hei Di's secondary market is young and has moved quickly. Their auction record is held by There Was One Summer Returning Over and Over; There Was One Dawn I Grew Old Watching (2023), which sold for HKD 2,667,000 (about USD 342,800) at Sotheby's Hong Kong on 28 September 2025, a reported jump of roughly 91 percent over the artist's prior high. That prior high had itself only recently been set: Drifted Petals on Her Lifted Mound sold for HKD 1.4 million (about USD 179,500) at Sotheby's Hong Kong, following earlier records of USD 155,035 for Orange Swim (2021) at Phillips Hong Kong and USD 127,000 for Unfolding a Flood (2022) at Phillips. Each of these results reset the artist's auction high in close succession, a pattern typical of a market still being established rather than one with a long trading record.

Li Hei Di's auction history is short, with results only beginning in the early 2020s and the current record set as recently as September 2025. Prices have climbed sharply from sale to sale, which reflects strong demand for a gallery-backed emerging artist but also means any single result should be read with caution rather than as evidence of a stable price floor. There is no catalogue raisonne, as is typical for an artist this early in a career, and Pace Gallery is the primary point of reference for current representation and verification. The combination of rapid gallery advancement and a still-thin resale market is the central fact for collectors to weigh.