LIU Shiyuan

The scope of Liu Shiyuan’s art practice comprises such domains as photography, video, stage performance and spatial installations. Through her art practice she exposes a visual language that is unaffected by regional boundaries.

In her early works, Liu Shiyuan put an emphasis on an intentional questioning of boundaries. She makes exaggerated use of symbolic, unassuming objects to satirize the contradictions between the way businesses are operated and our (i.e. human) beliefs. Recently, in view of multicultural living backgrounds, her art has become more geared towards the individual’s comical misreading of the relations between different historical civilizations and nature’s status quo. It’s difficult to pigeonhole Liu Shiyuan’s artworks as either photography or video. Whether static or dynamic, every one of her works exceeds the contexts and mediums used to produce it, and is able to come into existence independently.

Liu Shiyuan (b. 1985, Beijing, China) received her BFA from the Digital Media Art Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. In 2012 she graduated with a Master’s degree from the Photography Department of the School of Visual Arts, New York, USA. Recent solo exhibitions include For Jord, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2020); Opaque Pollination, Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Fort Lauderdale, USA (2020); In Other Words, Please Be True, WHITE SPACE BEIJING, Beijing, China (2019); Isolated Above, Connected Down, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, USA (2018); As Simple As Clay, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China (2015).  Recent group exhibitions include AI: Love and Artificial Intelligence, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, Beijing, China (2020); Lunar Phases, UCCA, Beijing, China (2019); The Mesh, Chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2019); Encounter, Shanghai Urban Space Art Season (SUSAS) 2019, Shanghai, China (2019); The Intertextuality of Art and Poetry, OCAT Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China (2019); Front international – Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art: An American City, Cleveland, USA (2018); Welcome to The Jungle, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany (2018); Art Patrons, Qiao Space, Shanghai, China (2018); Cold Night, UCCA, Beijing, China (2017); Yinchuan Biennale-For An Image, Faster Than Light, MOCA Yin Chuan, Yin Chuan, China (2016); The Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China 2015, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China (2016); Bentu, Chinese artists in a time of turbulence and transformation, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France (2016); The 2nd CAFAM Future Exhibition: The Young Chinese Artists’ Representation of Reality, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China (2015). Liu Shiyuan currently lives and works in Beijing, China and Copenhagen, Denmark.