Meet on the Edge
Zigsen Liu
7 Sep. – 5 Oct. 2024
Curation & Exhibition Text by Eli Welbourne
“Nowadays, AI, virtual reality, and simulacra have become keywords, and the original concept of things is constantly changing in this process, the concept of “me” is also constantly fading. My work attempts to reveal the chaos state and alienation characteristics that arise between people and things in this situation, and to find the edge between the construction and collapse of objects.” – Zigsen Liu
Some of the most provocative visions of 20th-century science fiction are becoming integrated into daily life. We seem to have reached a genuine and highly capable relationship with AI, virtualization of objects and space, machine vision, and large language models that drive diction and accelerate our digital lives. Furthermore, understanding the implications of introducing this tech to a broad consumer basis seems to be only digestible by the capability the tech itself provides. Algorithmic processes seemingly seek to demystify the collective compendium of human thought and reconstruct it into a vast array of meaning — raising new forms of bewilderment, awe, self-determination, mutation, artificiality in traditionally human exchange, and reflection.
While this is a current theme of the art world, it also brings a sense of congestion with the risk of endless noise flooding an already complex landscape. A near-nauseating hum of conceptual premise and tools ready to yet again upend society is nevertheless influencing practices in art and image-making.
With this as our backdrop Future Gallery presents the work of Zigsen Liu, whose works operate not necessarily in collaboration with the aforementioned technologies, but in observance and in reflection of these new waves. Rather, aiming to negotiate the throttling of high-tech fixation and understand the self within this context. His work seeks to identify the essence of objects undergoing continuous transformation, and process emotional states of a world in rapid flux.
Forms within Zigsen’s work emerge from this fluid landscape, probing the dissonance between humanity, new material, an increasingly virtual world – and portraying a disintegration effect and the alienation these technologies are capable of stirring within. Liu’s art seeks to define the space where creation and dissolution meet, capturing the delicate balance between them.
The aesthetic is marked by kinetic tension, which forms fragments into prismatic layers, bending light only to reassemble in paradoxical configurations. This approach mirrors the algorithmic processes of our digital age, where technology seeks to demystify and reconstruct reality.
However, Liu’s work resists the reductive logic of digital reproduction, instead embracing the ambiguity and indeterminacy that remain true to the spirit of artistic creation. Through this, the artist asserts the necessity of retaining a space for the ineffable, the uncertain, and the spiritually free within the increasingly mechanized, post-modern landscape.
Liu describes his creative process as an adventurous journey, one that begins with certainty but gradually veers into the unknown. He starts by reducing objects to their most elemental forms and colors—a “basic model”—but this model is dynamic, subject to spatial and physical interventions that reconfigure and distort it. Through layered strokes, the initial certainty is fractured, leading to unexpected possibilities and a balance between growth and decay. Objects in his work exist in a state of flux, hovering between familiarity and alienation.
Viewing in totality, Liu’s paintings emit a serenity – interlaced with prismatic qualities, creating a sense of distance from the layered images. This ambiguous space invites viewers to engage with the work, peeling back the layers, challenging their perceptions, and allowing them to wander within the kinesis of the image.
Liu’s background in sculpture deeply informs his engagement with space, moving beyond conventional perspective to embrace a more intuitive understanding of depth and dimensionality. His brushstrokes, layered and interwoven, build a spatial narrative where objects are in a constant state of becoming—unfolding, collapsing, and reconstituting within the canvas. This fusion of space and texture is both a visual and conceptual exploration, turning the act of painting into a process of spatial negotiation and temporal displacement.
In works such as New Youth and The Planet, Liu navigates themes of youth, surreal landscapes, and character reconstruction, reflecting an ongoing inquiry into the spatial dislocation between subject and object. His recent focus on architectural forms in works like Growing when Collapsed and Oriental Landscape explores the interplay of construction and decay, suggesting these processes are inherently linked rather than oppositional.
Zigsen Liu’s work leaves us with a meditation on the balance between form and formlessness, creation and collapse, certainty and ambiguity. In a world increasingly defined by technological mediation and the dissolution of traditional boundaries, Liu’s art invites us to explore the spaces where form and meaning are both constructed and deconstructed, where the known gives way to the unknown, and where new realities emerge through the act of creation.
Zigsen Liu was born in 1992 in Anqing, China and lives and works in Hangzhou and Shanghai. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Sculpture Department of China Academy of Art in 2010. In 2017, he participated in the workshop project of the HFBK-Hamburg, Germany. In 2018, he graduated with a master’s degree from the Painting Department of China Academy of Art. His works mainly explore the ways in which painting unfolds in today’s daily life, exploring the alienation states of contemporary people and objects, as well as the new mystical characteristics of technology’s enchantment, rethinking the definition of common things and their current meanings. His work is the institutional collections such as: Shanghai START Museum, Beijing X Museum, Guangdong Contemporary Art Foundation and National Museum of China
