G.E. Liu: A Ring of Gold With the Sun in It

November 16 - December 21, 2023
  • Works
  • About the Artist

    About the Artist

    G.E. Liu (b. 1995) is Taiwanese artist based in Tianan and Detroit. She received her BA from the National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan. Work by Liu is included in the collections of Cranbrook Art Museum. She has had a recent solo exhibition at Louis Buhl (Detroit), a 2 person show at Dinner Gallery (New York) and will have upcoming shows in Chicago and Rome.
  • Press Release Text
    A ring of gold with a sun in it? Lies. Lies and a grief.
    Sylvia Plath, “The Couriers,” Ariel, 1965. 

     

    LOS ANGELES, CA | albertz benda is pleased to present Taiwanese artist G.E. Liu’s first solo presentation in Los Angeles, on view from November 16-December 21, 2023. Entitled A Ring of Gold with the Sun in It, this exhibition features five multi-layered stretched silk paintings that construct mythological worlds as a coded satire of reality. The title of this exhibition references Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Couriers,” which addresses the false promise of an unhappy or duplicitous marriage. 

     

    In these new works, Liu positions the character of the bride as an allegory for the fetishized image of love in contemporary society. The compositions playfully juxtapose religious symbols with emblems of consumerism to satirize the idea of marriage as a means of self-actualization. Liu’s brides are grotesque in anticipation of their marital bliss. Wedding dresses grow organically from their flesh as if they were born solely for this moment. With crazed wide eyes and maniacal smiles, they are simultaneously heroines, villains, and innocents. 

     

    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.  

     

    G.E. Liu was born in Hualien, Taiwan and traveled to the United States to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Painting at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI. She currently lives and works in Tianan, Taiwan. Her work has been exhibited at public institutions including the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Milwaukee, WI and the Trout Museum of Art, Appleton WI. Previous solo presentations include First Love Paradise, Library Street Collective, Detroit; Purple Hearts for Virgin Wizards, Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago; and Tiger and Dragons and Ghosts Oh My (2 person show), Dinner Gallery, New York.  

     

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