art bio
Liu’s interest in art began at the age of fifteen, when she started experimenting with collage and photography at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990 with a B.A. degree in Asian Languages and Culture, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue her interest in acting. Her first solo exhibition, Unraveling, at Cast Iron Gallery in New York in 1993, was a photographic exhibition that earned her a grant to study at Beijing Normal University. Liu found this period in China to be extremely valuable, not only as an opportunity to learn more about her Chinese heritage, but also to expand her understanding of the symbolic potential of art. The trip became the subject of a body of work shown at her next one-person exhibition, Catapult, at Los Angeles’ Purple Gallery in 1997. Liu remained in Los Angeles for several years, during which time she continued to work in collage and photographic portraiture. She returned to New York City in 2004 and enrolled in painting classes at the New York Studio School from 2004-2007.
Ongoing conceptual concerns in Liu’s artwork have been the notions of security, salvation, and the long-term effects of personal relationships on our physical and emotional selves—themes that she addresses in painting, sculpture, collage, silkscreen, or the appropriation of discarded objects, which Liu recontextualizes in handmade constructions that function as reliquaries.
Her work has been featured in numerous gallery exhibitions and international art fairs, and is included in multiple private and corporate collections. Liu currently lives and works in New York City.
Selected Exhibitions
2023 what was, NYSS, New York, NY USA
2021 Union, Objective x Chambers Fine Art, Shanghai, China
2020 Together in Distance: COVID-19 Relief Benefit Auction, New York, NY USA
2020 One of These Things Is Not Like the Others, Napa Valley Museum Yountville, Yountville, CA, USA
2019 Needlepoint, Chambers Fine Art, New York, NY USA
2019 Unhomed Belongings, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore
2018 X Marks the Spot: Women of the New York Studio School, New York, NY, USA
2016 Good Feng Shui, Arturo Bandini, Los Angeles, CA USA
Art+Culture Projects Pop Up, New York, NY USA
XXI Mänttä Art Festival, Mantta, Finland
2014 The Last Brucennial, New York, NY, USA
2013 Totem, The Popular Institute, Manchester, UK
2011 Seventy Two, Salon Vert, London, UK
2010 Passing China, Zadok Gallery, Miami, FL, USA
2008 je suis. envois-moi, Galerie Six Friedrich Lisa Ungar, Munich, Germany
2006 Glass Onion, Milk Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2006 Antenna, Emotion Picture Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
1995 Catapult, Purple Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
1993 Unraveling, Cast Iron Gallery, SoHo, New York, NY, USA
To inquire about Lucy Liu's art, please contact art@lucyliu.net