<p>Li Yuan-chia, a Chinese artist active internationally in the mid- to late twentieth century, developed a distinctive body of work within the postwar European avant-garde, particularly during his exhibitions across 1960s–1970s Britain and continental Europe. Centring on his “dot” works, Album Paintings, and participatory Toyart, this article combines iconographic analysis, archival research, and interviews with Ton Fan co-founders to offer close readings of selected pieces. It proposes a conceptual framework of cross-cultural embodiment, hybrid self-identity, and cultural translation to show how Li’s practice both resonated with post-Duchampian, neo-Dada, Fluxus, and performance-oriented tendencies and exceeded them. By tracing the subtle but persistent presence of classical Chinese philosophical concepts, album and handscroll formats, and calligraphic gesture within these works, the article argues that Li’s art was doubly legible: visible and intelligible within Western avant-garde circuits while simultaneously encoding Chinese cosmological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns that were often misread or obscured. Reconsidering Li’s practice through this dual positioning, the article repositions his contribution within both European avant-garde histories and narratives of Chinese modern art, and suggests how this framework can help illuminate other mid-twentieth-century diasporic Chinese artists whose practices likewise unfolded between multiple modernities.</p>