Statement

"My work depends on a genuine connection to the material. By playing with the material—testing, manipulating, experimenting, and examining, even leaving it for months—I watch for the moment of surprise, when the material responds to one or a series of actions, and leads to an exciting physical or conceptual outcome. That outcome itself sometimes becomes the lead into a new project.

As one who comes from the East and lives in the West, I have experienced two distinct and often contradictory value systems. These experiences constantly influence each other, at times create conflicts in my life, and other times offer great inspirations for my work."

Bio

Beili Liu is a multidisciplinary artist whose time and process based work explores subjects of cultural specificity and overlaps, transient or persistent energy, and conflicting and confluent forces. Thread, paper, incense, wood, salt, water, these simple materials and compounds are the vehicles by which Beili Liu hand crafts microcosms of fragility and poignancy. By working on these everyday materials, Liu manipulates their intrinsic and bare qualities to extrapolate much more complex cultural narratives.

Beili Liu has held solo exhibitions at the Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norwegian National Art and Culture Center, Galerie An Der Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich, Germany, Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai, Asia Unlimited Gallery, Berlin, Germany, Nordisk Kunst Plattform, Brusand, Norway, and the Chinese Culture Foundation, San Francisco. Liu's work was included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, the Austin Museum of Art, Grand Rapids Museum of Art, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Granary Gallery, Fiskars, Finland and the Kaunas Biennale—a survey of international contemporary fiber art, hosted by the National Art Museum in Lithuania.

Liu’s work has received critical reviews from Art in America, Sacchi Online Review, UK, Helsinki Sanomat News, Finland, Stavanger News, Norway, China Daily, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Ceramic Art And Perception (Technical), Australia, San Francisco Chronicle, Art Slant Los Angeles, Buffalo News, and Detroit Metro times, among many others. Liu has received awards and prizes including artist fellowships at Art Farm, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Fiskars Onoma Foundation Artist Residency, Finland, and Fundación Valparaíso, Spain. Liu received the San Francisco Major’s Award for her contribution to cultural exchange in 2008, and was named twice "Artist of the Year", by Austin Visual Art Association and the Austin Critics Table Awards. In 2011, Liu received a Distinction award at the Kaunas Biennial, Lithuania. .

Born in Jilin, China, Liu and now lives and works in Austin, Texas, USA. She is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Texas at Austin.