$500
Blessing
LIAO, Shiou Ping
祈求 (original Chinese title?) Color intaglio on BFK Rives wove paper, circa 1970.Artist’s proof. Edition unknown, but apparently scarce.Signed “Lia...
View full detailsShiou Ping LIAO
Liao Shiou-Ping (also spelled Xiuping Liao, 廖修平) was born in 1936, in Taipei, Taiwan, and grew up close to the Lungshan Temple (or Longshan). After graduating from the Department of Fine Arts at the Taiwan Provincial University of Education in 1959 (today known as the National Taiwan Normal University, NTNU), Liao left for France where he wanted to further his artistic education. Liao found his way to the famous Atelier 17 Printmaking Studio in Paris, where he studied printmaking. It seems he lived and worked in Paris for most of the 1960s, moving to the United States in 1970. He is known to have been in the States for a little while, furthering his technical skills as a printmaker, but also accepting teaching engagement, like the one he held at East-West University in Chicago. By 1973, Shiou-Ping Liao was back in Taiwan, where he resides to this day.
While some of his art uses simple everyday shapes to create his compositions, such as fruit, leaves, or teacups, much of Liao’s art is composed of stylized shapes that are reminiscent of Asian calligraphy mixed with Western symbols. The easiest designation for the shapes Liao uses most often would be the word pictograms. However, these simple shapes are clearly inspired by a vast array of cultural appropriations, from writing to petroglyphs, from symbols to ideograms. The overall esthetic is one that clearly harks back to an aesthetic found in Taiwanese artistic use of Chinese characters. Liao however, makes this personal language completely his own. And in his prints, which are mostly intaglio, the use of linear etching and flat aquatint, enhances the textural quality of his quiltlike compositions.