“In traditional Chinese medicine, treatments are prescribed through dialogue—how well one can communicate internal pain becomes a condition for healing,” says Wen Liu. Significantly troublesome in moments of agony and discomfort, precisely describing our bodily sensations is important for receiving remedy, and but, as Liu factors out, it’s additionally an act of translation that may really feel almost unattainable whereas struggling and talking a second or third language.
The Shanghai-born artist, who’s now primarily based in Brooklyn, attracts on this actuality for her sculptural works that droop dried herbs in tinted resin. Liu started incorporating these pure prescriptions into her observe when her father died “as a way to metabolize grief and explore healing through cultural connection,” she provides.
Painted in pale purples and greens or silver, the molded-clay constructions are architectural and skeletal, whereas the natural parts evoke each stained-glass home windows usually seen in church buildings and cathedrals and susceptible membranes of the physique. Many works are affixed to the wall, though the human-sized “In Light, Where Edges Yield” stands freely on 4 legs with a spinal column at its middle.
Liu is intrigued by the best way mild filters via these surfaces and seems on the opposite aspect as a sacred, distorted beam of shade. “This refracted illumination offers a sensory language beyond speech, mirroring the project’s exploration of emotions like grief, the processes of healing, and the inadequacy of language in capturing lived experience,” she provides.
Regularly mixing Japanese and Western traditions, Liu instills a way of concord and stability in her works. She gravitates towards symmetry and presents her sculptures virtually like a Rorschach check, inviting viewers into a fragile dialogue of therapeutic.
Antidote is on view via June 21 at Gaa Gallery in New York. Liu is at the moment working towards an exhibition opening this month at Tang Up to date Artwork Beijing, and you’ll discover extra on her web site and Instagram. (by way of Younger House)
