Featured Artist
Kathy Liao
in
"Existence Unbound"
Existence Unbound
By
Pete Milosovich © 2011
Individuality anesthetized by the dominant culture at large represents a function of the current desire to fuel existence with layers of digital reproduction that eradicate the organic. So many grapple with the entrenched need for the articulation of perfection, while denying the reality of experience. Do we allow ourselves to become propelled into properly organized, geometrically constructed, well balanced, and ultimately carefully orchestrated carbon copies of this current fiction of the day? A continuous calamity that leads us by the nose through the gauntlet of power brokers that dictate how we must live; one text, one all knowing beacon of hope, ideological flood gates that pits us against the insurmountable walls of two defining poles, as if no other possibilities existed.
We exist, no matter how much we deny our tangible reality in favor of another time, another place…
Kathy Liao understands ambivalence as a measure of sadness shrouded by the propensity for beauty this world still possesses with every recurring brush stroke of pigment. Etiquette bound by the rules of social mores forever bind the role of gender, echoed throughout the stoic positions of a young woman sitting. This sense of entrapment, or cultural conditioning becomes carefully articulated through the sublime, yet organic expressions of the role of feminine form in a world confounded by deeper mysteries. Four prints saturated by colorful hues capture the necessity of tradition as a measure of repetition, form, and posture. Yet in Ms. Liao’s world the notion of static seemingly contradicts the addition of brilliant colors, collages, and remarkable textures that draw us deeper into the world of mystery behind the feminine mask…
Rather than condone or condemn the rigidity of impenetrable social mores vibrant color schemes both striking and nuanced enhance the distinct possibility that gender based beliefs demarcate a world of illusion. Such ‘feminine’ objects as a wedding veil, allusions to the proper etiquette of a young woman capture the power of deeply entrenched social codes forever dangling at arms length. Desire symbolized by the delicate, diaphanous shroud in Anticipation reveal a day that may never arrive, yet hangs in the balance amidst a room filled with the clutter of…
unfinished business.
Clouded by the illusion of eternal warmth and compassion created by the “idea” of the loving couple compels people of all sexual orientations to pursue the ideal. But with Ms. Liao it is never about the couple, just the mystery of ‘self,’ and in particular her own identity in relation to the cross-cultural difficulty of retaining her own feminine mystique. Forever drifting through a sea of bewildering gender based definitions Ms. Liao remains content to remain forever detached, ambiguous, and reluctant to buy into deep seated social codes; choosing instead perhaps the role of indifference as she yearns for
existence unbound.
By
Pete Milosovich © 2011
Individuality anesthetized by the dominant culture at large represents a function of the current desire to fuel existence with layers of digital reproduction that eradicate the organic. So many grapple with the entrenched need for the articulation of perfection, while denying the reality of experience. Do we allow ourselves to become propelled into properly organized, geometrically constructed, well balanced, and ultimately carefully orchestrated carbon copies of this current fiction of the day? A continuous calamity that leads us by the nose through the gauntlet of power brokers that dictate how we must live; one text, one all knowing beacon of hope, ideological flood gates that pits us against the insurmountable walls of two defining poles, as if no other possibilities existed.
We exist, no matter how much we deny our tangible reality in favor of another time, another place…
Kathy Liao understands ambivalence as a measure of sadness shrouded by the propensity for beauty this world still possesses with every recurring brush stroke of pigment. Etiquette bound by the rules of social mores forever bind the role of gender, echoed throughout the stoic positions of a young woman sitting. This sense of entrapment, or cultural conditioning becomes carefully articulated through the sublime, yet organic expressions of the role of feminine form in a world confounded by deeper mysteries. Four prints saturated by colorful hues capture the necessity of tradition as a measure of repetition, form, and posture. Yet in Ms. Liao’s world the notion of static seemingly contradicts the addition of brilliant colors, collages, and remarkable textures that draw us deeper into the world of mystery behind the feminine mask…
Rather than condone or condemn the rigidity of impenetrable social mores vibrant color schemes both striking and nuanced enhance the distinct possibility that gender based beliefs demarcate a world of illusion. Such ‘feminine’ objects as a wedding veil, allusions to the proper etiquette of a young woman capture the power of deeply entrenched social codes forever dangling at arms length. Desire symbolized by the delicate, diaphanous shroud in Anticipation reveal a day that may never arrive, yet hangs in the balance amidst a room filled with the clutter of…
unfinished business.
Clouded by the illusion of eternal warmth and compassion created by the “idea” of the loving couple compels people of all sexual orientations to pursue the ideal. But with Ms. Liao it is never about the couple, just the mystery of ‘self,’ and in particular her own identity in relation to the cross-cultural difficulty of retaining her own feminine mystique. Forever drifting through a sea of bewildering gender based definitions Ms. Liao remains content to remain forever detached, ambiguous, and reluctant to buy into deep seated social codes; choosing instead perhaps the role of indifference as she yearns for
existence unbound.