“I use the term body temperature for a painting's dialog between media and accumulated bodily perceptions.” – Liu Shih Tung
Lin & Lin Gallery is glad to present Liu Shih-Tung’s solo exhibition“The Passeur”. Liu is not only an image collector, but a perceptive observer with an eye for essential detailof daily objects. He employs highly individualistictechniques of mixed media and collage, combining keen perceptions, which consequently result in a series of artwork enveloped in heartfelt warmth.
Subject matter for Liu’s work in all three of most recent solo exhibitions, Breeze: The Landscapes of Liu Shih-Tung, Polysemy, and 2015 The Passeur, was imagery suggesting something distant and ineffable. His latest work concerns with a primal, bodily perception. He wants to express “traces of blowing wind and flowing water.” It is a kind of abstraction, which seems like a wandering spirit revealing in the work.
Liu releases“Mountain and Rock” series, which are different from those seen in traditional paintings, and moreover are reminiscent of animals. He was researching classical rock painting from different dynasties. He looked at a great many texts and images; some paintings were elegant and delicate, while others were startling for their eccentricity. Liu studied the logic of the literati appreciation of rocks across a range of periods. When painting, he didn't copy or transform any specific forms, but rather followed his intuition. In this way, the rocks just developed and grew naturally on the canvas.
Liu Shih-Tung, in the meantime, presents the latest “Acrylic Liquid” series. He stresses on the exaggeration and deformation by means of rearranging decorative patterns. The multiple layers create intriguing visual aesthetics. The clear adhesive glue helps viewers to see the details of objects.
Pictorial transformation has always been an important part of Liu’s paintings. He nicknames them “plastic surgeries” because he cuts out those eyes and noses that he thinks are fascinating from ordinary magazines. To do this, he relies on bodily intuition and memories, and the result is new images based on his personal experience. If look carefully at the flowers and birds in his work, viewers will see that they aren't representations of anything in the real world, but rather have distorted proportions or somehow deviate from what is normal. His pictorial transformation creates a surrealism world, and reflects the artist’s sense of humor.
Born in 1970 in Miaoli, Taiwan, Liu Shih-Tung received MFA of Taipei National University of the Arts. He has numerous domestic and international exhibitions. His work is in collection of Taipei Fine Arts Museum, White Rabbit Collection, Deutsche Bank Art and so forth. In addition, Liu is frequently awarded and invited as an artist-in-residence. He was in the residence program at Young-Un Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea; at 18th Street Art Center presenting solo exhibition “Bright Eye” in LA, USA. He was selected by Asian Cultural Council to complete a two-month residency program at Morishita Studio in Tokyo, Japan.
