About Chiu-Chen Liu

A NYC native by way of Changhua, Taiwan, Chiu-Chen Liu’s visual imagery is borne from her lifelong dedication to artistic exploration and expression. Liu came to NYC over 14 years ago at the age of 17 to study viola and piano at the Manhattan School of Music. Once in NY, and with a wealth of galleries and museums at her disposal, Liu’s visual and conceptual world grew exponentially, with frequent visits to MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum, the Frick, the Guggenheim, and various galleries all around the city. Here she discovered the dark and colorful vibrancy of Van Gogh, the luminous expressivity of Matisse, and the singular style of Camille Claudel; artists whose work has made an incalculable contribution to Liu’s work and development.

Liu’s works on paper extend from a blend of early Twentieth Century French references. They deploy a playful free-wandering quality of line that is as much borne from Matisse’s bold outlines and half-fiﾞguration as it is from André Masson’s “automatic drawing.” Liu entertains the notion that her early morning drawings resonate with her dream-life, just as Masson suggested that the unpremeditated line is also drawn from the Freudian unconscious mind. Her works toy with a dance of color against line, and are dotted with moments in which watercolor wash bleeding across the page is offset by cosmic forms executed in gouache. Moreover, she allows her chosen media to shape the character of her imagery, as if to comment on the physical properties of watercolor, in which a sensuous, aquatic sensibility prevails.