Chen Chusheng, the Chinese singer-songwriter who won Hunan TV’s “Singer 2025,” has brought in contemporary artist Li Erpeng to paint 14 original works for the vinyl release of his album “Wasteland of Wonders.” On June 9, the day pre-orders opened, QQ Music awarded the vinyl edition its “Double Diamond” sales certification. Others grew out of stories and imagined scenes that came up as the work progressed. As a set, they build a visual landscape around the record, giving listeners a second way into its moods.
Li’s 14 canvases took shape gradually as he worked alongside the music, combining imagery drawn from the songs with ideas that developed as he painted. In Li’s view, strong music builds its own world, and his job is to put that world on canvas. Because the paintings are built into the vinyl package, the artwork becomes part of how fans take in the album, linking the recordings to the visual stories that sit alongside them.
Winners Gallery represents Li for the collaboration. Li, who is based in Hong Kong, creates collector pieces modeled on legendary figures, among them athletes. His recent pieces pair painting with elaborate sculptural frames, so that the portrait and the structure around it function as one artwork.
Beyond the “Wasteland of Wonders” commission, his practice has moved into film. He is doing preparatory work on a CG-animated world for a film now in pre-production. The Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum in Beijing and Sydney’s White Rabbit Gallery hold his work in their collections.
Chen first became a household name in China in 2007 after winning Hunan TV’s “Super Boy,” and later returned to the broadcaster to take the top prize on “Singer 2025,” the channel’s biggest singing contest. His April 2026 stadium concert in Nanchang drew some 50,000 fans, a personal attendance record at the time. According to Beijing Radio & Television, all 50,000 tickets were gone within 24 minutes.
A report from Nanchang’s state-assets authority attributed close to RMB1 billion ($149 million) in local consumer spending to the show.
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