Mirror
2019 × Tim Yip 
The exhibition culminated in a huge standing figure of a sculptural figure named Lili — a young woman one might see on the streets of any Chinese city — reproduced in every detail on a gigantic scale. The question on everybody’s lips is ‘Who is Lili?’
As the title of this exhibition, “Mirror”, suggests, Lili offers us a reflection of ourselves. She is a vacuum. She contains nothing , yet if she is brought into the room, she changes the dynamic of the space around her. She is an agent of transformation.
The human cell, at the nucleus of which lies the DNA in which our genetic history is charted, is now itself the subject of an enormous atlas. Lili propagates not DNA but “spiritual DNA”, an invisible binding force that links us all through a chain of memories to our deepest personal history. She offers a counterpoint to everything we can touch and call “real”. She never moves or even turns her head unless directed by the hands of others, yet she fixes us all with her gaze. It is in this territory of the intangible that Tim Yip makes art.
