Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday. There are artists whose auction markets feel like accidents—brief flare‑ups of appetite fueled by novelty, narrative, or a single well‑placed sale. And then there are artists whose markets feel, even early on, like the visible surface of something deeper and slower moving. Li Hei Di, born in 1997 in Shenyang, China, and now based in London, belongs squarely to the latter category. Related Articles While Li’s auction history remains short, the artist has become one of the more closely watched young painters over the last two years, even as much of the ultra-contemporary category has fizzled. After becoming the youngest artist on Pace’s roster in September 2024, they began to see their first results at auction, with works from 2021 and 2022 entering sales in Hong Kong and New York that fall. So far, Li’s work has appeared at auction 12 times so far, with eight of those appearances in Hong Kong. Nearly every appearance has exceeded expectations, …