Artworks by: Kathy Liao

Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art

KATHY LIAO

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

56” x 30” each

Saving Face/ Self Portraits

Self Portrait in Studio

2015

Mixed Media on canvas

30” x 36”

Self Portrait with Purple Hearts

2017 Oil on Canvas

48” x 48”

Breath Out

2014

Mixed Media on canvas 66 x 58 inches

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

Red Hat

2014

Mixed Media on fabric on panel

46 x 36 inches

Oil on two canvases

60 x 140 inches

Family Pool

2014

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

Fortune Telling

on canvas

x 36 inches

Proximity (multiple color variations) #1

4 Plate Aluminum Lithography

16 x 13.5 inches

Proximity (multiple color variations) #2

4 Plate Aluminum Lithography

16 x 13.5 inches

Presence

Absent

2017 Oil on linen

24 x 24 inches

Memory of Watermelons

and fabric on canvas

x 53

19 x 20.5 inches

Polka Dot Couch 2017

Gouache, collage, and color pencil on paper

Of Bugs and Strangers

2016

3 plate Aluminum lithography

12 x 9 inches

Losing Touch 2019 Oil on paper

20 x 34 inches (framed)

48 x 38 inches

Balcony 2022

Oil on printed linen

Underlying

Collage, marker, color pencil and gouache on paper

30 x 34 inches framed

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

Ink and collage on paper

24 x 20 inches

Flight 2016

Your Space/ MySpace

Oil on canvas

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.

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

Liu Nian 2021

Oil and acrylic on panels

120 x 180 inches

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Installation

Photography by E.G. Schempf

Mixed media on paper

115 x 168 inches

Without 2018

Neon Lights Lullaby 2019

Collage, woodcut prints, litho touche, and oil on paper

72 x 75 inches

30th and Market 2012

Mixed media on canvas

48 x 60 inches

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)

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