Lui Liu (Yi Liu) b. 1957

Often compared with Italian baroque artist Carvaggio, Lui Liu plays with the absurd and grotesque in his painting.

Born in Northern China, he graduated from the esteemed Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and participated in the famous "China Avant-garde Show" at the National Gallery in 1989. His paintings were reproduced and reviewed by "Art Presse" in Paris as the signature works of the exhibition.

In 1991, he went to Canada and has been dividing his time between the two countries ever since.

Lui Liu is a member of Ontario Society of Artists. He held solo shows at the Taiwan Fine Arts Museum and at the Contemporary Art Center of Holland in 1999. Other solo shows were at the Galley Blue in the States in 1998, at the Meg Gallery in 1996, and at the Madison Gallery in 1994 in Toronto. In the Spring of 1995 he participated in the "Continuity of Talents" show at the Forni Gallery in Bologna, Italy. His works were shown at the Barcelona's Artexpo'96. Lui Liu's works have been reproduced in the Canadian art magazine "Bordercrossings" in 1994 and in the literary magazine "Exile" in 1995. His oil paintings have appeared on several book covers and magazines.

Lui Liu's works have been purchased and commissioned by private and corporate collectors in North America and around the world.

Artist Statement:

"These are not the best times for artists and their works.

The old masters of oil paintings have developed their techniques to perfection; and the masters of modern art have extended their styles to an extreme. Wittgenstein remarked about language: "If only you do not try to utter what is unutterable then nothing gets lost. And the unutterable will be contained in what has been uttered." I believe, when it comes to the fields of fine arts - what is utterable has mostly been uttered.

In my opinion, the borderlines dividing language, science, common sense and the arts are disappearing gradually. I see convergence bringing about an integrated cultural world, and my works are an attempt to present such a vision of the integrating world to our senses. For me, this is the utterable element still unuttered.

Modernity appears to me like a tin bucket in which every possible style has been poured and mixed and used and abused in search of self-expression. A child can express himself with crayons and doodles. But great art could not be pure self-expression; it's unfortunately the opposite. When an art piece is placed in a position of great art, it's the unselfish erasing of the painter that lets it live, as T.S.Eliot has said, "the process of creation is the process of constantly removing one's character and individuality from the work."

What's left of ME in my paintings then is the combination of other people's rules and technique and my psychological perception of reality. I don't try to be ancient or modern. I could only paint within the continuity of a tradition and with a simple mission: to paint the ever-lasting mythopoetic images of our time as they come out of the past and move into the future.

Nothing could be this carefree when I gained the stage to dance with chains. "

Lui Liu

Sources include:
timeoutbeijing.com/
artodyssey.com