Instagram: @geliuchihi
Images: Top row, from left to right “There’s no condom for your heart,” “Formula of Forgiveness,” “Soul Sanitizer,” and “Promising Young Woman,”
Virgin Wizard’s Michigan Internal Academy
About the Artist:
G.E. Liu. is a painter based in Taiwan and Detroit. She was born and raised in Taiwan.
Her visual vocabulary explores the commonalities and variations between the East and West and infuses humor, sexuality, and self-deprecation.
Liu usually paints on silk. She states it’s a fabric that contains a rich history and representation of ancient Asian culture. Meanwhile, through the contemporary lens, silk has another layer of kitsch thanks to globalization and consumerism. She likes to play with that duality in her work, both medium-wise and conceptual-wise, to have conversations about beauty and negativity simultaneously happening in one idea. Just like “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” from William Blake, where he talked about the essence of traveling flexibly from the good and evil, from paradise to underworld.
Another connection to her Taiwanese heritage is the use of color-changing lights, which represent Taiwan’s position as the global leader in LED manufacturing. It has become an authentically kitsch phenomenon in Taiwan where people are used to seeing cheap LED lights decorating the streets, especially on local religious celebrations and events.