He originated from
Kunming,
Yunnan, born to a man who fought against the Japanese in the
Second Sino-Japanese War and against the
Kuomintang in the
Chinese Civil War. By the time of Li's birth, he was a secretary in the
Chinese Communist Party (CPC). Li's father remained loyal to the CPC even after he was sent away for re-education. Jeffrey Mather of the
City University of Hong Kong described Li's father as "the main contributor to the artist's personal development" and "at once a Communist hero and a tyrannical patriarch." Li is a self-taught artist and never attended
art school. He read a book on how to make political propaganda and began painting criticisms of landowners. Li worked as a farmer after, in the 1970s, becoming a member of the
People's Liberation Army, and worked towards becoming a member of the CPC. He painted pictures of farmers for the Department of Propaganda and worked for the '''' (云南日报); he worked at the latter for thirty years. Li has a son who resided in
London. In January 2014, fourteen of his works were exhibited by the
Musée Cernuschi in
Paris, and about fifty of his works were exhibited in the Grand Theatre in
Angers. In 2015 the
Michelin Foundation established an exhibit of his works in Clermont, and it did the same the following year in
Shanghai. ==Artistic style==