Meet Tian Liu

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tian Liu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tian below.

Tian, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Wandering.

We live in a world full of endless choices. It’s not just the freedom to move upward or downward, but even in the moments when we stay still, there are countless ways to spend that time. If you want to be a writer, you must first experience reading. If you want to do rock climbing, you’ll experience countless falls. If you want to be an artist, you need to wander through different mediums until you find your artistic voice.

Only by constantly wandering, experiencing, and exploring the different paths life offers can you eliminate what you don’t want. Knowing what you don’t want helps you determine what you do want, and that is your goal.

My first dream was to become a writer. But when I first started learning to read and write, I found my native language—Chinese—to be the scariest and most boring thing in the world. Whether it was the illogical Romanized pinyin system or the horizontal and vertical strokes, I couldn’t memorize the characters. The gap between spoken and written Chinese made me grow up with a fear of the language, especially when surrounded by so many “talented” writers being praised. It wasn’t until the language truly became part of me—when I could use it to tell a simple but complete story, when I could write without struggling to meet a word count—that the sense of achievement from telling my own story outweighed any external praise. That’s when it became part of my life’s direction.

When I went to college, I studied Journalism and Mass Communication, Studio Art, and Creative Writing. In a foreign country, using a second language, everything I studied became a language lesson, no matter what the subject was. Even though I loved what I was learning, it didn’t make the struggle any less painful, just like when I was learning Chinese as a child. But because I was studying something I was passionate about, compared to something I might have found easier like the sciences, that desire to learn carried within it my sense of direction. A journalist’s mission is to be a watchdog, with a sense of responsibility toward society and the world. Writing news is writing the first draft of history, and after experiencing the global COVID-19 pandemic, I realized the stories I once wrote became part of that historical record.

Praise and criticism were no longer the main factors guiding my choices. I began to think about the stories we hear—those defined by the media as “newsworthy” and “timely.” But what about the stories that aren’t timely, yet hold deep personal significance? Who records them? Who listens? Or will they be forgotten, filtered out by the media’s lens?

Women like my grandmother, who didn’t receive a formal education, who lived through historic shifts, and who faced gender oppression and discrimination under patriarchy—will their stories be forgotten after they die? As their descendant, I’ve seen these stories play out again and again in society. I can hear their faint voices. Why shouldn’t I become the storyteller for these quieter, less sensational stories?

By using art as a medium of narration—through visuals and sound—I can convey emotions and help people see the individuals behind the grand narratives.

Now, I know I want to be an artist who tells women’s stories, using personal narratives and small, intimate details to illuminate their experiences.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My work explores themes of identity, belonging, and the fragility of human experience through multimedia art forms such as photography, performance, sculpture, and installation. One of the pieces I’m most excited about is my recent candy chair project, titled Tián, 2024. The name is a play on my name and the word “sweetness” in Mandarin, representing both my identity and the fragility of navigating life as an Asian woman in unfamiliar spaces.

This candy chair is more than just a sculpture; it is a representation of myself—fragile, impermanent, yet carried with determination through every space I’ve inhabited. It’s made from hand-molded candy, pieced together one by one into the form of a chair. The material is both playful and delicate, much like the experience of living far from home, where even a simple movement risks causing the chair to melt—especially in Southern California, known for its high temperatures. I carried this chair with me to all the spaces I frequented during grad school, using it as a way to document my interactions with these environments. The piece reflects the tension between identity and belonging, embodying the constant balancing act of self-preservation in a foreign context.

What excites me most about this project is how it allows viewers to connect with the emotional fragility we all experience but often overlook. No matter what you do, the candy chair inevitably melts unless placed in a freezer—which means you must leave the space. For me, it symbolizes how I’ve learned to create site-specific work, turning any space into a gallery.

In addition to Tián, 2024, my last solo show in February, fú píng, was another example of a site-specific work. fú píng is a two-channel video sculpture set in an intimate space that invites viewers to physically engage with the installation. The structure is built around a queen-size bed, draped with an old-fashioned Chinese mosquito net. One video is projected overhead, almost like a fishbowl, while the other is projected onto the side of the net, resembling a window. Visitors are invited to lie down on the bed and gaze upward at the projection before sitting up, mimicking the action of waking up to reality. This motion reflects the experience of women who feel like outsiders in their own homes—awakening to the societal pressures and invisibility they often face.

Through personal and familial stories, I explore themes of love, belonging, and the outsider status of women. By physically inviting viewers to lie down, sit up, and engage with the sculpture, the work emphasizes the intimate connection between the personal and the public, as well as the tension between visibility and invisibility.

As I mentioned before, my goal is to use personal narratives to tell women’s stories. In the most recent group show I participated in, curated by Alex Sherman, What’s the Beef?, held in September at GOES TO OCEAN in Los Angeles, I exhibited a video piece titled My Name Is (2023), which was a collaboration with Emiko Wilks. This video explores our self-identities as expressed through our given names, delving into the deeper meanings and connections between identity and the names we carry. The piece reflects how our names—Liu,Tian and Emiko Wilks—carry cultural, familial, and societal weight, influencing our sense of self.

Overall, my artistic focus is on telling women’s stories through personal narrative and intimate, often interactive, installations. I am committed to using art as a means of bringing attention to these nuanced and underrepresented perspectives.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

In one word, I’d sum it up with flexibility. The flexibility to adapt to change. The flexibility to accept suggestions and criticism. The flexibility to be ready to go at any moment. You never know what might happen in the next second—it’s all about flexibility.

The flexibility to adapt to change. In both the art world and real life, things rarely go as planned. Learning to understand the gap between imagination and reality, and how to adapt to that shift, is crucial. Maybe your work was originally designed for a big gallery, but it’s not the end of the world if you show it somewhere else. You might even discover a way to let the environment shape your work into a new story. Personally, I dislike small spaces for group shows, where works can interfere with each other. But it forced me to think about how I could make a difference in a familiar, cramped space.

Take my work Untitled, 2023—it was designed to be immersive while still holding its own meaning. I covered the floor with white paper and installed my photo print on the ground, inviting the audience to step on it. The photo was of a One Child Policy slogan on a wall in China. Red ink was hidden beneath the print, and if viewers entered the space before the ink dried, they’d leave red footprints. Even if they came later, their dusty footprints would still leave marks on the white paper. The photo documented a historical moment, but the installation also documented the space itself. Without the limitation of exhibiting in such a small space, I wouldn’t have created this location-specific piece.

The flexibility to accept suggestions and criticism. Art is subjective, so you’ll never communicate your message exactly as you intended. When people offer suggestions or criticism, it doesn’t mean they dislike your work or hate you. It just means there’s room for improvement—maybe something got lost in translation. Take feedback as an opportunity to adjust and refine how you express your ideas through art. And also, ignore the hate. You can only communicate with those willing to engage. You’re making art, not trying to please everyone. Accept suggestions and criticism, but be smart about it.

The flexibility to be ready to go at any moment. Opportunities are fewer than we think, and nothing will wait for you to feel “ready.” You have to be willing to jump when an opportunity comes, even if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing. You’ll learn more by trying and failing than by waiting until you feel fully prepared. Trust me, people face more rejections than they admit, because we’re so used to pretending success is the only outcome of hard work. Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

Accepted what happened and let it go, and kept working toward the next adventure.

I used to be the kind of person who was sensitive, sentimental, and emotional—constantly reflecting on what happened to me and what I did wrong. But in early 2023, on the day of the opening of my first solo show in LA, someone walked into my gallery space and damaged my artwork. It completely destroyed my trust in the audience and the space where I was exhibiting.

The exhibition was about my family trauma, but because of what happened, it quickly turned into my own trauma in art-making. I didn’t even have time to celebrate the show’s opening. Afterward, I was sick for almost two months, mentally and physically, due to COVID. I didn’t have the energy to reflect on what had happened or blame myself. Once I started recovering, I had to work hard to catch up on everything I’d missed.

I pushed the incident aside and focused on my new practice—film and video. At first, I couldn’t think about it, then I couldn’t talk about it, but eventually, I embraced the idea of leaving space for my audience to interact with my work—even if it meant they might damage it. Untitled, the photographic installation I mentioned earlier, came out of that mindset. It’s interesting—while I no longer trusted my audience to respect my work, I did trust them to destroy it.

I can’t say I purposely did anything to heal myself. But by stopping the constant self-reflection and blame, I was able to move forward. Tragedies happen, but it doesn’t mean we have to carry them with us forever. We can leave them behind and give ourselves time to grow stronger before looking back and addressing what was left unresolved. The real milestone in life is that we experience, accept, and remember it—and keep moving forward.

Now, I’ve learned to trust my audience again but also to accept failure as a part of the work itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tian-liu-x.com
• Instagram: @tian_liu_photo

Image Credits

Tian Liu, Emiko Wilks