Tianlian
Liu Tianlian: Blooming, GR Gallery, 2024
两个世界 Two Worlds (2018)
Hiart Projects Hi 艺术空间
The bizarre fowls and beasts, highly-bright hues, complete visual images, and the ‘illuminants’ which combine fantasy with the visionary aspiration, make you imagine that the young lady penned down the expansive world that was conjured up in her mind... It is true that Tiantian’s paintings are alive, a kind of vividness of sensation and imagination. It is a coexistence of a girl’s sharp, stubborn and dreamy temperament with a boy’s frankness from the heart. Her works reflect the dreams in reality which in return complements the dream. They are colours, forms and also poems.
人间蜃景 Mirage of the Human World (2021)
Line Gallery 玉兰堂
Liu Tianlian's solo exhibition "Mirage of the Human World" presents nearly 20 new works by the artist. In his piece "Shenshuo", the late Song Dynasty poet Lin Jingxi wrote:
"Suddenly, several mountains emerged from the sea. Amidst the vast and boundless ocean, they stood like strange peaks, connected like overlapping ridges. Over time, they shifted — sometimes standing like human figures, sometimes dispersing like beasts, sometimes lined up like decorated banners, mysterious and ever-changing. Gradually, they dissolved into nothingness, vanished into the distance, leaving only scorched earth and drifting dust. This, too, is a mirage."
For Liu Tianlian, ghostly figures and folklore stem from the very stories of humanity itself — they are reflections of the deepest secrets of the human heart, manifested in the real world. As an observer, the artist gazes at the ever-shifting illusions that rise above the human world — like a mirage, they are projections of human existence.
This mirage is constantly transforming and circulating through the layers of human culture. The artist explores this phenomenon through his own artistic language. As Liu Tianlian states: "These countless human faces, continuously projected through culture, form the foundation of human civilization. They reveal how we should perceive the world — offering a way to lift the veil of confusion and revisit the classical elements of our culture with fresh eyes."
This is not a story about the classical past — it is about a certain human truth. This truth transcends time and space, as demonstrated in his work "Everlasting Light." As a conceptual artist, Liu Tianlian presents to us a vision of the "mirage of the human world" — an unfolding exploration of human existence and its ephemeral yet timeless nature.
闻过则喜 Joy in Hearing Criticism (2021)
Line Gallery 玉兰堂
"Zilu, when someone points out your shortcomings, you should rejoice." It expresses an open-minded approach to self-reflection and humility. At the same time, it implies that the artist hopes the viewers will experience a sense of joy through the exhibition.
In this exhibition, Liu Tianlian traverses between ancient Chinese mythology and Western art masters, using her distinctive meticulous technique to create dreamlike, fantastical, and surreal scenes. She navigates the spaces between the ancient and the modern, the East and the West, moving freely through them. Within this garden of imagination, there is light, joy, wit, and spirit. The artist unveils a magnificent tapestry, immersing herself in the dreamlike garden of her creations.
Installation Shot, Ink for excellence: Liu Tianlian’s Solo Exhibition
Liu Tianlian's Fantastical World of Flowers and Birds
Hu Bin 胡 斌
What relevance can traditional meticulous flower-and-bird painting have in the context of contemporary art? On the surface, the subject matter of this genre seems naturally detached from the pressing realities of modern life, and in terms of artistic form, it predominantly resides within the traditional framework of Chinese painting. Consequently, its fate is often one of either being appreciated in solitude by the artist or relegated to the role of decorative art in domestic spaces.
Liu Tianlian’s vibrant and meticulously detailed works primarily depict flowers, birds, fish, and insects. Her color palette is rich and vivid, and her attention to detail is exceptional. At first glance, her paintings may appear to align with the elegant and opulent style typical of academic meticulous painting. However, a closer inspection reveals that Liu has introduced numerous innovations within the traditional techniques of meticulous painting. For instance, her compositional arrangements are strikingly unconventional. She is not confined by realistic depictions of the world but instead imaginatively presents scenes, such as an overturned fish tank floating in mid-air. The clusters of flowers in her works can be freely rearranged or even integrated into the hairstyles of iconic figures. What stands out most is the fantastical spatial configurations she creates. Liu paints an open box, where each side of the box functions both as a decorative element and as an independent painting. Occasionally, dragonflies appear to emerge from the box, blurring the line between reality and fantasy, and offering the viewer a unique psychological experience in the interweaving of multiple spatial dimensions. Moreover, her seals often become integral components of the painted scene, with birds and insects perching on them, further reflecting the artist's inventive and playful spirit.
Currently, some art critics are contemplating the ways in which traditional meticulous flower-and-bird painting can engage with contemporary concerns. The virtual landscapes found in Liu Tianlian’s works offer a path for this genre to intersect with contemporary art. She remains in the exploratory phase of this process, moving forward with a distinctive personal vision, and with a light and playful approach. It is my belief that this exhibition represents just the beginning of her artistic journey, and in time, she will achieve even more profound transformations within the aesthetic tradition of meticulous flower-and-bird painting.
Mythical Beasts, 2021, Chinese Mineral Pigment on Silk, 78.7" Ø
The Changes of Time, 2023, Chinese Mineral Pigment on Paper and Silk, 67.0" × 23.6" (in 5 panels)
Untitled Art Miami Beach (2025)
Untitled Art Miami Beach
Shaped by a life lived across places, Liu Tianlian always goes beyond what’s in front of her. Her works are informed by the overlapping roles she inhabits, as an artist, a mother, a partner, and a new immigrant adjusting to life in the United States. Across her works runs a quiet undercurrent of distance, the limbo phase where she is physically present here while her mind drifts elsewhere.
These moments surface not in dramatic scenes but in the pauses of the mundane aspects of life, while soothing a child, going on a subway ride, or waiting on the drying cycle at the laundromat, etc. Liu’s imagined realm unfolds in these small intervals, pushing back against the subtle erosion of the self that the daily routines can impose. Through this gentle friction between the imagined and the everyday, Liu reclaims her own agency.
Brain Baby series draw on two classic thought experiments, the Western philosophical puzzle “Brain in a Vat” and the Chinese parable of Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream. Though emerging from different traditions, both pose the same fundamental question: How do we know the reality we inhabit is real?
Liu Tianlian sometimes withdraws from her surroundings. “I’m just simply living in a new city after all,” she recalls, “yet it feels as if I’ve stepped out of the world I used to know.” The empirical knowledge that guided Liu for years does not apply to her new life. Liu has to learn a new language, and to navigate a social landscape structured by unfamiliar norms.
Liu Tianlian named this work after the biblical story Exodus. At the center of the piece, her two sons squeezed together in a bathtub, yet alongside the domestic scene appear two iconic episodes from the biblical Book of Exodus: the Frog Plagues and Moses splitting the Red Sea.
Using the everyday as an anchor, Liu suspends the scene between the ordinary and the sacred. The water in the tub becomes a point of convergence, recalling, for her, the amniotic fluid of pregnancy, a space with “clear boundaries and no escape,” while also echoing the sea Moses crossed to bound to a new land. Within these overlapping associations lie her self reflections on parenthood, the decision to uproot, and the tension between containment and passage, constraint and breakthrough. These oppositions surface not through grand declarations, but through the small, accumulated details of daily life.
In Discussion about Space Exploration, Liu Tianlian depicts a domestic scene in which her two sons are fighting over the topic of the universe and also a boba tea. Liu is fascinated by this duality of human nature which lies between the divine and the animalistic urges. “We reach for something higher and farther, yet are continually pulled back down by the most immediate desires.” Liu recognizes this same tension in her own practice. Her work, like her children’s gestures, moves between the metaphysical and the mundane. She thinks in cosmic terms, yet acts within the dust and noise of daily life. It is in this oscillation between aspiration and appetite, transcendence and the ordinary, that Liu’s works find their force.
