Max Li is an interdisciplinary artist from China, currently based in Chicago.

He holds an MFA from the University of Chicago and a BFA with Honors from the University of California, Irvine. His practice spans photography, tintype, object-making, and contemporary digital tools, exploring the relationship between the sacred and the everyday, as well as themes of memory, fractal, and lived experience. His work often takes shape through time-based processes, attending to how meaning accumulates through improvisation, repetition and duration.

Max is the Artistic Director of Big House Studio, a Chicago-based creative studio engaged in full-service design, production, and collaborative projects. He also offers arts and creative consultation across cultural, educational, and institutional contexts, developing sustainable, experimental and site-specific experiences.

In Chicago, Max consults as the Manager of Cultural Engagement & Events at the historic First Presbyterian Church of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood. There, he works closely with community members and artists to activate the church’s spaces through exhibitions, performances, communal dinners, workshops, and other site-responsive programs that support sustained cultural exchange and collective gathering.


For conversation, showing, and other thoughts,
please email: omaxlgzo@gmail.com

Current Position:

Artist & Photographer,

Art Director
    Big House Studio, Chicago based full service creative firm,

Art & Cultural Consultant,
    Manager of Cultural Engagement & Events at The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago,

Co-Director
    Molosco Porcelain