Artworks by: Kathy Liao

Page 1

Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art

KATHY LIAO

Gallery Director: Sherry Leedy Catalog Design: Elise Gagliardi Find us at: SherryLeedy.com IG: @sherryleedycontemporaryart FB: @sherryleedycontemporaryart 2004 Baltimore Ave. Kansas City, MO 64108 Cover Image: Oil on Canvas
Presenting artworks by: Kathy Liao
Kathy Liao in her Studio’s Inc Studio

Biography

Drawing inspirations from her diverse cultural background and personal history, Kathy Liao mixed media work is about the intimate yet universal concept of relationships.

Liao received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and BFA in Painting and Drawing from University of Washington, Seattle. Liao is a recipient of various awards including the 2020 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award, Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant, and artist grants and fellowships from Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center, and Jentel Artist Residency. Her work was shown in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Kansas City, and many other cities nationally and internationally. In the past, Liao was the Director of the Painting and Printmaking Studio Art Program at Missouri Western State University, and taught at Boston University, University of Washington, Seattle University, and Gage Academy of Art. She is currently part of the Artist Services team at Mid-America Arts Alliance in Kansas City.

Collect Calls (from “Conversations” series)

2011 Woodcut mono-type, chine colle on paper

6.
56” x 30” each
7.

Saving Face/ Self Portraits

8.
Self Portrait in Studio 2015 Mixed Media on canvas 30” x 36”
9.
Self Portrait with Purple Hearts 2017 Oil on Canvas 48” x 48”
10.
Breath Out 2014 Mixed Media on canvas 66 x 58 inches
11.
Breath In 2014 Mixed Media on canvas 68 x 58 inches

I’m Home

“I’m Home / 我回來了 / ただいま”: an announcement of one’s return, a declaration of one’s presence in the house. In Japanese culture, ただいま/tadaima “I’ve returned” is often met with the phrase おかえりなさい/okairinasai, “welcome back”. A home is not complete without that exchange - the acknowledgment that my presence is welcomed and embraced by others who share my home.

Coming home, I enjoy the sense of familiarity to everything around me - all the little things that remind me I belong here. This include the presence of family I’ve grown accustomed to around the house - family members going about their daily routine, watching TV, on the computer, doing laundry, cooking... Even when they are no longer there, their presence lingers and I know I’m home. Compiled from photographs and recent memories, the paintings and drawings were an attempt to record and preserve those presences in those familiar spaces. -Liao

13.
Red Hat 2014 Mixed Media on fabric on panel 46 x 36 inches

Oil on two canvases

60 x 140 inches

14.
Family Pool 2014
15.

Lingering Presence

In the last few years, my grandmother’s memories have been slipping away from her. I held her close to my heart, but I could feel the distance between me and her widening. I am at the periphery of her foggy world. Despite losing her memory, she is always so happy and surprised when I came into focus. I often wonder how she experiences her world. Does she live in a colorless blurry haze to have it punctuated by bursts of kaleidoscopic remembrance?

The absence and presence of “Memory” is something I think a lot about in my recent work. I think a lot about how memories fade with time, and how memories get altered and distilled through iterative attempts to record it. My work has really slowed down, now that I paint less from life and more from memory. In the last few years, my grandmother’s memories have been fading away. I call her waipuo (which means grandma in Chinese). The absence and loss of her memory only prompted me to hold on to it more, wanting to preserve it somehow. -Liao

17.
Fortune Telling
2019 Oil
on canvas
46
x 36 inches

Proximity (multiple color variations) #1

4 Plate Aluminum Lithography

16 x 13.5 inches

18.
2016

Proximity (multiple color variations) #2

4 Plate Aluminum Lithography

16 x 13.5 inches

19.
2016

Presence

20.
Absent 2017 Oil on linen 24 x 24 inches
21.
2017
Memory of Watermelons
Oil
and fabric on canvas
54
x 53

19 x 20.5 inches

22.
Polka Dot Couch 2017 Gouache, collage, and color pencil on paper

Of Bugs and Strangers

2016

3 plate Aluminum lithography

12 x 9 inches

23.

Losing Touch 2019 Oil on paper

20 x 34 inches (framed)

24.

48 x 38 inches

25.
Balcony 2022 Oil on printed linen
26.
Underlying
Hum 2021 Oil on canvas 40x 40 inches

Collage, marker, color pencil and gouache on paper

30 x 34 inches framed

27.
Korean Drama Lullaby 2020

Distance Between Here and There

In this body of work I considered the physical distance, psychological distance, and this new cyber distance we experience around us.

During my travels, I see everyone glued to the phone, they all feel closely connected to something in cyberspace, but a million miles away from the person next to them. This compression and expansion of distance is most apparent to me when my grandmother’s faced popped up on Facetime. It is always a mixed bag of emotions for me. She recognizes me sometime, and other times, she’s confused with the technology and who I am. She is so far and so close at the same time (sometimes a little too close to the screen). -Liao

28.

Ink and collage on paper

24 x 20 inches

29.
Flight 2016

Your Space/ MySpace

30.
2018
Oil on canvas
62
x 50 inches

In Between the Lines 2019

Charcoal, marker, ink, silkscreen, oil on paper and canvas

252 x 132 inches approx

Site Specific Installation at H&R Block art space.

31.

In Between the Lines

Phone calls at the same time every day, packing and unpacking luggages, eagerly waiting at Arrival and saying good-byes at Departure, getting into another long winding customs and border security line… These rituals are performed by many American Dream hopefuls, despite not knowing when or where the line ends. In my work, I look for patterns and repetitions in behaviors of the immigrant family. I want to understand the driving force behind making choices to uproot a family. As families separate and migrate, I recognize the invariable loss and the struggle to justify and reconcile the distance in between. -Liao

Layered Memories and Lullaby

My recent paintings and wall drawing installations document the fluid state between experience, memory, and place.

My family is very much part of me, and I find comfort in patterns and rituals that weaved through the way my family interacts, from a long distance. I think about the layers of memories pass down through generation.

My grandmother’s memories, overlapped through my mother’s retelling of her stories, layered with my very own lived experience. We can’t separate our perception of the RIGHT NOW from our past generational history to our envisioning of the future.

-Liao

Returning and Thread 2023

Mixed media installation

Wall installation: 88 x 132 inches

Sculpture: 41x 24 x 40 inches

34.
36.
Liu Nian 2021 Oil and acrylic on panels 120 x 180 inches

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Installation

Photography by E.G. Schempf

37.

Mixed media on paper

115 x 168 inches

38.
Without 2018
39.
Neon Lights Lullaby 2019 Collage, woodcut prints, litho touche, and oil on paper 72 x 75 inches

30th and Market 2012

40.
Mixed media on canvas 48 x 60 inches
41.
Tero in Green Shirt 2013 Oil and collage on canvas 40 x 30 inches

Mother Tongue Series 2024

Acrylic on masa paper

26 works on paper

22 x 30 inches each (unframed)

44.

Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION________________________________________________________________________

2016 Lithography Summer Workshop, Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM

2011 Master of Fine Arts in Painting, Boston University, Boston, MA

2008

2006

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS__________________________________________________

2023 [upcoming] solo exhibition Title TBD, Studios INC, Kansas City, MO

2022 Returning/Belonging, Benjamin Park and Kathy Liao, Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St

Joseph, MO

Kathy Liao, Johnson County Library System, Cedar Roe Branch, Overland Park, KS

2021 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award Exhibition, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS

2018 Autonomous Bodies, StudiosINC Exhibition Space, Kansas City, MO

Immigrant Stories, Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL

2017 Lingering Presence, Prographica/KDR Gallery, Seattle, WA

Floating World, Kiosk Gallery, Kansas City, MO

So Close and So Far, University of Central Missouri Art Gallery, Warrensberg, MO

2016 New Works on Paper, Art Source & Design Gallery, Overland Park, KS

Distance between Here and There, P.O.E. Foundation Gallery, Cottey College, Nevada, MO

2013 I’m Home, CORE Gallery, Seattle, WA

We Are Close, Blindfold Gallery, Seattle, WA

2012 Duality beyond Borders, Ethnic Heritage Gallery, Seattle, WA

2011 New Works on Paper, Burk Gallery, Seattle, WA

Reaching: MFA Candidate Show, Commonwealth Gallery, Boston, MA

2009 Reflection, Boston University Women’s Resource Center, Boston, MA Behind the Façade, La Familia Gallery, Seattle, WA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS________________________________________________________________

2022 Found in Translation, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

CSF 25th Anniversary Site Installation, Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, MO

Lamplighters, Vulpes Bastille, Kansas City, MO

2021 Site One, Beco Gallery, Kansas City, MO

Stretch Marks, Project + Gallery, St Louis, MO, Juror: Jennifer Sees

The Space Between, Marks Art, Wichita, KS, Juror: Armando Minjarez

Materialist II, Leedy Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO

Disrupted Realism, Buckham Gallery, Flint, MI

2020 Collective Disquiet, an online exhibition, Musa Collective, Boston, MA

September Exhibition, Sager Braudis Gallery, Columbia, MO

REBIRTH, Heidmann Art Salon, Kansas City, MO

2019 Look me in the Eye, Epsten Gallery, Overland Park, KS, Juror: Mike Lyon

45. K A T H Y L I A O w w w . k a t h y l i a o . c o m 4304 Campbell St, Kansas City, MO 64110 | 206.719.8966 | kathyliao.art@gmail.com | 1
46.
47.
48.
49.

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.