SNIPPET introduces... Liying Zhao

Liying Zhao is currently an MFA student in the stage 1 at Newcastle University. She is a painter whose practice is primarily concerned with her daily life experience and personal emotions. 

She tends to look in her own back yard, capture and dig deeply into her present, specific and potential mood and feeling she is undergoing, represent through painting, drawing, video, installation or words recording. Someone said that she is like a butterfly because she seldom staying on one flower for a long time. In fact she has been working closely with the periodical emotion, thus once she jumps out from that emotion, the exploration of that emotion of works will not to be continued. As a result, sometime viewers can hardly find out an apparent and coherent clue of the theme of her works. However, there is a clue of her long-term motives of lives can be find when combining these disparate works together into a big picture.

Currently, her works are searched into the relationship of uncertainty and ambiguity between man and woman. The work of research is separated into 3 main parts using three elements say branches, fingers and lines, representing separately through painting, video and drawing, to demonstrate her understanding and feeling of this ambiguous interaction.

As to the development of personal style, it is transforming from graphic image into abstract lines and mark making. In the meanwhile, the notion of ‘title’ is emerging in her mind and showing up by her works. In her previous works, she always tried to tell the whole stories to viewers, but now, what she wants to show is the ‘title; rather than the content of the story. 

For her, the process of experiencing and finding is enjoyable and inspiring, and in this stage, the most cheerful thing is looking for new points ceaselessly rather than sticking on one point. This process of experience, finding and representation is not only an important way to keep life fresh, but also a way of self-criticism and self-definition, to find out who she is.