Xi (Cici) Liu's Art Portfolio

Cici. Liu

Paintings

This painting intended to show people's desires.

Although some people already possess a lot of things, they still want more.

For example, the man in the picture already has cars and buildings.

However, instead of cherishing those things, he was staring at a beautiful young girl and desiring to go on a date with her.

This is a painting representing my interests. In this painting, all of my hobbies, emotions, and pastimes are shown.

In this painting, I want to convey the idea of wild animals' freedom. Many wild animals, like bears, lions, are shut in cages that are only a little bigger than their body sizes at zoos. This was done only for tourists to have a look at them. However, putting ourselves in those wild animals' shoes, how would we feel? My answer is despairing, depressed, and bored. I hope that by seeing this picture, the audience can imagine themselves being shut in small cages every day, in order to deeply understand how the animals may feel.

These two paintings have been sent to Sinojapan Cultural Exchange Exhibition in 2020. Last summer, when I went to SanYa, I noticed that there were tons of trashes thrown on the beach. Not only does trash destroys the beauty of the beach, but it also causes health problems for sea animals. I hope that by seeing this painting, more people can raise awareness of the harms brought by coastal pollution.

This painting was exhibited in Shanghai Museum in 2019.

The theme of the exhibition was “horse�, and I happened to love horses very much.

My Sketchbook

Copied from other artist’s work

Copied from other artist’s work.

A sketch of my best friend from school.

Adapted from other artist’s work

Illustrations

This is an illustration book about the conflicts between teenagers and their parents. In the last two years, I have been involved in a psychodrama volunteer program. In this program, we demonstrated some common problems between teenagers and their parents through acting out relevant scripts. After the teenagers or the parents watched our drama, we hope they can understand each other better. By viewing this illustration book, I hope teenagers and their parents can confront problems between them. Also, to be able to understand each other’s feelings in different situations.

Sketches

Final Pieces

Final Displays

Installations and Collages

When we enter a pet store, we often see how different breeds of cats are shut in display rooms with price labels . However, thinking critically, we are treating the cats like lifeless products. They neither have freedom to step out from the small rooms nor have the right to refuse moving from one place to another. It is also quite immoral to say that a certain breed of cats should be more expensive, and some breeds of cats that only have average appearance should be abandoned on the street. In this project, I tried to exaggerate this fact and show it indirectly but vividly to people. I stuffed the signature characteristics of different cat breeds into small glass jars and labeled them with prices and bar codes. This was done in attempt to show how people are commercializing animals.

Chinese Traditional Art

I have been learning Chinese traditional painting since I was ten years old. I enjoy doing it a lot because it encourages me to observe the nature closely and find beautiful sceneries in daily life.

Digital Art

I like to use my digital art skills in my school’s projects or presentations. For example, when I did a presentation about animal cell, I add an image of how it looks like, so other students can understand it better. In another English project about a book called "The Giver", I drew a map of the utopia described in the book.