Artist Statement II

H. J. Liu
Prof. Sang K.Kim

I was born in 1983 in Taipei City, Taiwan and graduated from the Visual Communication Design department of National Taiwan University of Arts in 2004. I am currently studying Arts and Culture Management program at Pratt Institute. My photography often focuses on the differences between the cultures I have known and different environment I have experienced. They are the visually expressed thoughts and memorial response to the impact of things in our modern world that catch my attention.

As a photographer, I shoot scenes that have the power to mesmerize. Frequently, these moments possess a deja vu or dreamscape quality that full of isolation and loneliness. Being a Taiwanese in the China has expanded my perception in many ways. When a person is exposed to a culture different from his/her upbringing, questions of personal identity are certainly to surface due to the unique situation of cultural clashes.

Given my multi-ethnic background -– a Taiwanese who has lived in Taiwan where is a multi-cultural society, a Taiwanese who has roots in China where my grandfather was born. They are so much complexity rooted in my upbringing and life experience. Where do I stand among all these cultural influences? What kind of global culture I stand for? Will I be floating endlessly between Taiwan and China without ever having a definite secure? Or could I find a way to embrace both cultures by looking beyond the obvious surface? With all these questions in mind, I have traveled to a many cities in China to start my photography for my root-discovery.

The overlapping visual outcomes are fascinating and insightful; they have revealed more truths regarding my situation through this process of intuitive creation. The implied metaphors in the poetic visuals resonate strongly with my inner thoughts and contemplations in many
levels, bringing the unconscious into a visual manifestation that symbolizes my struggle between multiculturalism and individualism. That body of work eventually led me to the series “Windows”, which I created in 2006 while I was traveling in Shanghai, China. This body of work is a different approach of questioning my existence from a more universal point of view, like how I track to the wooden decoration and window lattice.

People live in a combination of windows that can be seen inside- environment and themselves, and the outside- indoor view and other world. All of them are reflected on the window glass and this is how I came to view life and its meaning. I have erred in hoping to seek meaning from a universal point of view, like how man hope to track space and time absolutely. Space and time is relative so must be judged from a reference, and this is how I came to view life and its meaning. I’m interested in expressing a separate reality that defies literal implications, its open my works to a poetic kind of looking.

There are many the cultural and personal narratives fixed into the photographs. I also introduce the China’s discrepant life style and motif that combine with former times and present times into the photo-based field, hoping to enliven and stir up its surface. These include images of stairs, bicycles, posts, and lofts, among others, all borrowed from Chinese historical background and suspended in the photographs. The traditional motifs evoke a sense of the command cultural memory underlying the surfaces of history. In particular, the stylized Chinese stairs from buildings as old as hundred years - seem like witnesses from China’s past, overlooking and commenting upon historical events from its changeable modern era. Thus, two layers of historical representation – from traditional objects and modern photography – co-exist in my photographs. The photographic objects interests me that each photographic object is in dialogue with each other, and also photographic object is the one can interact with viewers. Further, I try to communicate with viewers a visual language through objects and living environment, especially highlight the human condition of our spiritual identity and people’s reaction for their surroundings. It reflects different parts of our culture, history and identity. Many painters remove their imperfections in their work, but art to me is more a process of searching than creating and I use them to reveal what we do or do not see.