Insomnia

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Mixed Media Installation

A rectangular steel tank grows a green, moss-like aquatic plant called duckweed, a fast-replicating invasive species that floats on the surface of slow-moving bodies of water. Two horizontal towers stand beside the tank, raining down a thick viscous liquid in continuous thread-like streams. Duckweed is often a problem in ponds and nature parks by forming dense mats on the water’s surface, blocking sunlight, reducing oxygen levels, and thriving at the expense of other forms of life. However, recent scientific studies have identified it as a potential candidate for the future of organic fuel and food production in outer space. Liu’s ecosystem balances this tension: the cost of overproduction and the possibility of discovery and renewal. Using duckweed as a metaphor for unchecked biological reproduction, Liu asks how natural processes like fertility and growth are altered under social and technological pressures, putting the balance of a larger ecosystem at risk.

Insomnia

2025

Aluminum, stainless steel, resin, fibreglass, acrylic, led lights, silicone oil, water, duckweed

Tank: 1260 x 1780 x 350mm
Kinetic systems (each): 150 x 1780 x 1200mm

Encaustic Series

Liu’s encaustic works, composed of beeswax and tree resin, adopt a centuries old technique that gestures towards notions of immortality and permanence while simultaneously expanding the genres of landscape painting and portraiture. As in earlier works where Liu used gold thread to map patterns in her genetic code, she embeds and excavates silk threads in layers of encaustic to structure the composition, resembling the root systems of fossilized plants or delicate capillary networks beneath the skin. These works draw inspiration from The Vegetarian by Han Kang, a Kafkaesque novel in which a woman imagines herself as a plant in radical protest against societal norms, ultimately starving herself to death. Liu extends this metaphor to consider how female identity is both biologically and culturally constrained. Just as modern agriculture demands that plants flower and fruit with unnatural frequency, so too is the female body often caught between the ideals of freedom and control. In an effort to study the limits of self-authorship in an age of boundless data and perpetual advancement, Liu renders the self through ecological and biological mapping, refusing figuration in favor of material code.

Towards the Light

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

900 x 1525 x 55mm

The Twins of One

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

1700 x 780 x 55mm

Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

1700 x 780 x 55mm

Common Rue

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

910 x 610 x 55mm

Sleep

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

305 x 405 x 5mm

Study #2 for Roots

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

205 x 205 x 5mm

Study #3 for Roots

2025

Encaustic Medium, Pigments, Silk Threads

305 x 405 x 5mm

Credits

Production: Shijia Huang
Project Manager: Sórcha Bradford
Artist Assistant: Yingtong Lin