Amiko Li's melancholic portraits places people in emotional environments.

These images are taken from Amiko Li’s ongoing body of work, “Saudade“. Strangers, family members and friends occupy strange, familiar places in Li’s photographs. Li utilizes natural light in his photographs to highlight the present atmosphere of the spaces and the people that he photographs. On the surface, Li’s images are beautifully restrained, but the emotional drama of his subjects unravel in a poetic way as one continue to examine the photographs.

Amiko Li was born in 1993 in Shanghai. He is interested in the personal landscape and fragility of youth. He is currently pursuing his BFA degree in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has taken Advanced Photography Intensive in Columbia University in the summer of 2013. His works have been exhibited throughout the United States and China including Newspace Center for Photography; The Center for Fine Art Photography; Andy Warhol Museum, amongst others. His works have been featured in numerous online publications including SFMOMA blog; Ain’t Bad Magazine. He is the winner of 2014 Center Project Launch Award Juror Choice, American Photography 30 and ArtSlant 2014 1st Showcase, also a finalist of 2014 Lucie Emerging Scholarship.