Lemkus Gallery is excited to announce its next Residency28 candidate, Yolanda Li. Li (b. 2002) is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Johannesburg, who has been living and working in Cape Town since 2021. Yolanda recently graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art (2024). Her graduate project, Blue Sky Green Grass, explored the strained relation between reality and representation; its affective bearing on the postmodern experience. Li took on the ubiquitous WindowsXP screensaver, Charles O’Rear’s Bliss (1996), a symbol of the ‘old-future’ aesthetic that captures our obscure longing for simulacra (simulations of the outside world), as opposed to the environment itself. 

Her work was included in the group exhibitions To Be Fair, and Block Party at Demo Projects in 2024 and was featured in Blurring the Lines in the same year. Her work as a part of the Residency28 programme will culminate in her first solo presentation in a gallery setting. We are equally grateful and excited to be able to host her practice for the duration of the programme.