Li Shan's paintings describe a surrealistic world where some peculiar orc-like beings live. Some of them have wings like butterflies, and others are variated species. This imaginary world portrays people with a poetic and erotic atmosphere with a sense of tension and alienation.

While Li Shan was attending the Venice Biennial in 1983, he was enlightened by the art of Matthew Barney, a young American artist. After this experience, Li Shan started to paint his "Reading" series. As for the interpretation of the name "Reading", Li Shan said: "Constantly people make mistakes in the process of reading, and mistakes sometimes arouse creations, which can be a new explanation, or extraordinary and variated elements."

Li Shan's style of art has changed several times over the past 20 years. Synthetic insects have started to appear in his "Reading" series since 2005. The images of insects are composed of human parts such as fingers, ears, lips, or even genitals. Li Shan emphasizes his concern to bio-politics and the result thereof through those weird but realistic "in-between" insect representations.