Anatomy: G.E. Liu

Library Street Collective is excited to announce Anatomy: G.E. Liu, an online exhibition of new work that presents an intimate look into the artist’s studio, practice, and inspiration. Launching on March 23, the presentation will feature conversations with X Museum founder Michael Xufu Huang, artist Inka Essenhigh, and Library Street Collective Senior Director Sara Nickleson. Anatomy will also showcase Liu’s multiform paintings on silk that are rooted in ancient Chinese alchemy and Jung’s concept of the hero’s journey toward individuation. Her visual vocabulary explores the commonalities and variations between the East and West and infuses humor, sexuality, and self-deprecation.

Liu was born and raised in Taiwan and traveled to the United States for her graduate studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It was during her time in the US that she first became acutely aware of the many parallels and distinctions that exist between Eastern and Western cultures, and she now looks to these contradictions to guide the narratives and materials of her work. Liu is fascinated by the body-spirit cultivation of Medieval Chinese science and cosmology, and sees herself as something of an alchemist as she mixes and contrasts ideas around mythology, gender, love, theology, and cultural identity. “My practice focuses on building a mythological world as a coded satire of reality. As both Christianity and consumerism are the largest influence of western culture’s invasion in Taiwan, I celebrate them just like I embrace the celebration of love, worship, apocalypse, social media, and Taiwanese local culture. My intention is to explore the psychological realm of what lies beneath the mythological alchemic superstructure through my own intuitive visual language.”

Liu develops female characters within her work to act as heroines, villains, and innocents, as they traverse her densely layered narratives. More often than not, these characters are the mortal receivers of lessons from the gods, objects of their affections, and at times, even subjects of their deceit. For Liu, it is important to present women in all their complexity, as they absorb judgment and expectation and transform it into life force: “I have a lot of female figures that are associated with snakes and dragons, or having a snake body eating its tail. The Ouroboros talks about self-destruction and rebirth simultaneously and to me, this aligns with how women and their bodies can be viewed as a double-edged sword, bringing power but also disgrace, love but also hatred.” The use of coded satire, romantic irony, and grotesque fantasy lightens the conceptual weight of the works, and the use of silk as a painting support does the same for Liu’s aesthetic. Silk has a long history as a reverent material in the East, but the West’s consumerist invasion has redefined it through mass production, deeming it kitsch. Another connection to Liu’s Taiwanese heritage is the use of color changing lights, which represent Taiwan’s position as the global leader in LED manufacturing, and remind her of night markets and religious decoration.