Xiao Lu Liu
Arrested Identity
January 13, 2018 - February 10, 2018
OPENING: Saturday, January 13, 7-10 PM
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January 13 - February 10, 2018
Ro2 Art |
Ro2 Art is thrilled to present ‘Arrested Identity,’ the first solo exhibition by artist Xiao Lu Liu. The show will run from January 13 through February, 2018. There will be an opening reception held Saturday, January 13, from 7-10 p.m. and Xiao Lu Liu will be giving an artist's talk February 10, 2018 from 2pm - 4pm at Ro2 Art, located at 1501 S. Ervay Street in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood.
Xiao Lu Liu’s ‘Arrested Identity’ explores the often untold struggle of identity forming in toxic socio-cultural environment. She presents prints and paintings with characters in impossible, mysterious, and absurd activities revealing the emotional and spiritual suffering of their disconnection from a genuine, authentic self. Symbols, analogies, and satires are used by Liu to guide the viewer through the narratives while leaving room open to interpretation. The works create ever-shifting dynamics between the recognizable and the unseen, and between conviction and reality. It challenges the viewers to ponder their own forming of identities. |
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ARTIST
Xiao Lu Liu |
Xiao Lu Liu was born and raised in China and she moved with her family to the United States in 2007. Since then, she has started a formal art education. Liu is now a senior printmaking major at the University of North Texas. She started doing printmaking in spring 2015 and has loved it ever since. In 2016, she received the Jean Andrews Scholarship from the College of Visual Art and Design at UNT, as well as the CVAD creative project award for traveling to the Frogman’s Print Workshop in Nebraska, one of the nation’s top printmaking workshops. Printmaking has been an eye-opening journey for Liu because of the range of possibilities it offers in its various processes. Moving forward, Liu is going to explore other creative processes, especially painting while focusing on printmaking. Liu is working as a full time studio artist.
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ARTIST STATEMENT
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Executed in traditional printmaking processes and painting, these images generate an aura of both familiarity and other worldliness. They act as lenses through which everyday encounters and existences are altered in meaningful and surrealistic ways. Victims of their glorified false identities are given the stage, and pivotal moments of good-intention-turn-tragedy are depicted. The struggle of identity forming provides a constant inspiration. Surrealist scenes and inventions are constructed for metaphor and meaning rather than only for novelty's sake. Elements from Chinese traditional and modern culture are used as symbols and codes that are crucial in comprehensive delivery of the narratives. Certain established believe about children and the practice of identity construction upon them since their early childhood are challenged, leading to a deeper look into the complexity of human psychology. This further leads to asking philosophical questions on human identity and human emotional and spiritual needs; art creating is an attempt to explore our conscious connection (and the lack of it) with these essential components that makes us human.
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