Cob Gallery presents the debut solo exhibition for Chinese artist Yi Liu. Known for a unique blend of Eastern and Western painting techniques, Yi Liu's latest series, Searching the Mountains, continues her exploration of traditional oriental imagery while incorporating Western artistic methods.
In Searching the Mountains, Yi Liu adopts the multi-scene composition characteristic of Chinese paintings. This approach enhances narrative depth through the simultaneity of expressive and intricate imagery. By combining this with Western techniques, Yi Liu has developed a distinctive painterly language that mirrors her personal experience of being Chinese while living and painting in the West for the first time.
This series directly references the 17th-century Chinese painting "Searching the Mountains for Demons," which depicts divine warriors scouring mountains for demons and monsters. However, Yi Liu inverts this legend by portraying the traditionally human characters as demons and the monsters as heroes. This role reversal invites viewers to question the dichotomies of good and evil, fairness and justice, power and oppression. By omitting the end of the traditional title, Searching the Mountains is transformed into a universal, spiritual, and secular exploration.
Yi Liu's work delves into the depiction of resources and symbols: celestial soldiers, chains, bracelets, and weapons. These images symbolize oppression and discipline, penetrating deeper into social structures and psychological realms. The animals in the images represent human primal instincts and desires, suppressed by moral norms. This struggle and dilemma challenge our inherent perceptions of good and evil, revealing the complexity and multifaceted nature of power.
Additionally, this series reflects on the jungle, advocating the survival of the fittest and highlighting the pursuit of power and profit. Yi Liu portrays the jungle as a theater of conflict, oppression, and sacrifice. Hidden among branches and leaves are mutilated figures—vague and abstract in a dark world—symbolizing the invisible and absolute power that permeates society. The absurdity of these images adds to the drama of the work, depicting animals in stone, running, or falling in various poses, creating a sense of invisible oppression and critiquing the social status quo and human instincts.
Yi Liu's Searching the Mountains invites viewers to explore these themes deeply, challenging their perceptions and encouraging a reflection on contemporary social hierarchies and the complexities of power.
