"I make environments that resonate with the experience of migration and cultural memory. My work looks at fusing together the seemingly opposite in life: alien and familiar, uncertainty and hope, aggression and stillness―the yielding resilience that I see as the feminine strength, overcoming great obstacles, like dripping water that eventually penetrates stone. Underpinning my practice is the need to better understand how migration and diaspora impact human experience through encounters and separations, displacements and assimilations, the intimacy of memories, and the gravity of time."
Beili Liu is a visual artist who creates material-and-process-driven, site-responsive installations. Oftentimes embodying transience, fragility, and the passage of time, Liu’s immersive installations are engaged with multifaceted dichotomies: lightness contrasted with heft; fierceness countered by resilience, and chaos balanced by quiet order. Working with commonplace materials and elements such as thread, scissors, paper, stone, fire, and water, Liu manipulates their intrinsic qualities to extrapolate complex cultural narratives. Janet Koplos spoke of Liu’s works as “materially simple but metaphorically rich” (Art in America Review, April 2009).
Beili Liu’s work has been exhibited in Asia, Europe and across the United States. She has held solo exhibitions at venues such as the Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norwegian National Art and Culture Center (2016, 2011), Hua Gallery, London, UK (2012), Galerie An Der Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2011), Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai (2009), and the Chinese Culture Foundation, San Francisco (2015, 2008). Liu’s work has been showcased in group exhibitions at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. (2012), Hamburg Art Week, Germany (2012), the Kaunas Biennale, Lithuania (2011), and the 23rd and 25th Miniartextil International Contemporary Fiber Art exhibitions in Como, Italy (2015, 2013), among many others.
Beili Liu is a 2016 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant recipient. Liu has been designated the Texas State Artist in 3D medium (2018) by the Texas State Legislature and the Texas Commission on The Arts. Beili Liu’s work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts (Museum of Southeast Texas, 2014) and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artistic Innovation and Collaboration Grant (Women and Their Work Gallery, 2013). Liu has received artist residency fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Center, Studios at MASS MoCA, Facebook AIR, Fiskars AIR, Djerassi Foundation, and Fundación Valparaíso, Spain, among others. She received a Distinction award at the Kaunas Biennial Lithuania (2011), and was honored by a San Francisco Mayor’s Award (2008) for her contribution to cultural exchange.
Liu’s work has received critical reviews from publication including Art in America, Sacchi Review, UK, Helsinki Sanomat News, Finland, Morgenbladet, Norway, China Daily, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Hamburg Abendblatt, Vita (Life) Magazine, Italy, ArtSlant, The Huffington Post, New York Times, San Francisco Examiner and LA Confidential.
Born in Jilin, China, Beili Liu now lives and works in Austin, Texas, USA. Liu received her MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is the Leslie Waggener Professor in the Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.
Annette Carlozzi is a champion of local artist communities who stays abreast of international developments and has a keen eye for emerging talent and a steadfast commitment to looking beyond labels. Best known in Austin as the founding modern and contemporary curator at the Blanton and as co-leader of The Contemporary’s Crit Group, Carlozzi has built an expansive curatorial practice creating seminal exhibitions (Luis Jiménez, Peter Saul, Paul Chan: Present Tense, Mike’s World, Desire), producing important commissions (Nancy Holt, Siah Armajani, Betye Saar, Teresita Fernández), and acquiring major works by a wide range of contemporary artists (Acconci, Mendieta, Ligon, Kim, Adkins, Lozano, Jacir). After training at Walker Art Center and serving as the first professional curator at Laguna Gloria Art Museum (now The Contemporary Austin), she served as Director of the Aspen Art Museum, Executive Director of the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and Visual Arts Producer for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Named to the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2013, Carlozzi is now an independent curator. Her latest project—After Carolee: Tender and Fierce—is on view now at Artpace, San Antonio and features a new work by Beili Liu, along with works by 13 other Texas-affiliated artists.
Coffee Chats feature leaders in the creative community sharing their personal and professional experiences to inspire others pursuing careers in art. To view past conversations, visit our Coffee Chats Archive.
Beili Liu, photo credit Phillip Rogers
Annette Carlozzi, photo credit is Regina Vater