In The Heart Sutra, Li Jin presents us with one of his fantastic, imaginary banquet scenes. Here, his guest list includes historical celebrities such as German social theorist Max Weber, James Bond actor Sean Connery and Ramones drummer Marky Ramone; real people Li Jin has encountered in the streets of Osaka, New York and Berlin; people and animals sporting a variety of masks including those of plague physicians during Europe’s Black Death, oxygen respirators of aviators from World Wars I and II, masks for animals particularly dogs and pigs, and perhaps even masks for S&M role play; and finally no less than eight portraits of the artist himself as Norman soldier, Elizabethan tradesman, Brooklyn hipster, befuddled ski accident victim, disgruntled artist, and Edwardian chauffeur amongst others.

In front of the assembled diners, Li Jin depicts an unending bounty of exotic delicacies such as chicken heads and feet, boar’s head and fresh eel, grubs and caterpillars; banquet favorites such as lobster, whole fish, sushi, fat pork and 110-proof, distilled Maotai liquor; and everyday favorites such as boiled dumplings, frog’s legs, hot dogs, bok choy and radishes.

Throughout this unfolding indulgence, however, Li Jin inscribes his painting with texts from the Buddhist liturgy: the Repentance Master Cíyún's Pure Land Verses, the Compassionate Repentance of Emperor Liang, the eponymous Heart Sutra, the Eight Verses in Praise of Maitreya, and the Compassionate Samadhi Water Repentance, amongst others. Chanting these texts or writing them as Li Jin does here, is an act of repentance—a means of accumulating merit to counterbalance a life of ongoing attachment and sin.

Indeed, at the center of the composition is the headless, Willendorf-proportioned torso of a female figure. Unabashedly ample bodies are a recurring theme in Li Jin’s painting and convey the inescapable corporeal nature of human existence and its incumbent pleasures and desires. Here, it serves both as a celebration of the body and its power to give life and as a very personal confession to the desire such bodies invoke.

As New York-based writer and critic Jeffrey Hantover once observed, “Li Jin’s battle between indulgence and moderation—the devil and monk within him—and self and selflessness is constant. Great art comes from conflict, internal and external—the law versus natural morality in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn … or the personal battle with addiction and despair in O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. Whether Li Jin wins or loses the fight, we the viewers of his most human and affecting art continue to be the winners.”