Pixy Liao, from "Experimental Relationship"
Artist Pixy Liao describes one of her photographic series, For Your Eyes Only — a collection of fragmented body parts and objects — as emerging from “a desire to play all the time”. It’s a description that can be applied to the Chinese artist’s work in general — her photographs present a playful engagement with desire, gender and sexual dynamics, culminating in the publication of her first photobook, Experimental Relationship Vol. 1, earlier this year. Liao’s candid debut, which received a special mention at the 2018 Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards last weekend, explores the balance of power in her relationship with her Japanese boyfriend, Moro — a musician five years her junior, who she met when she moved to Tennessee a few years back.
Moro was very different to the romantic partners Liao, who is now based in Brooklyn, NY, had imagined herself ending up with as a young girl growing up in Shanghai. “I used to think I could only love someone who is older and more mature than me, who could be my protector and mentor,” Liao reveals to SLEEK. Instead, meeting Moro transformed her perception of power dynamics in heterosexual relationships. “I became the person with the authority and power. One of my male friends even questioned how I could choose a boyfriend the way a man would choose a girlfriend.” This newfound and unfamiliar female dominance became the subject of Liao’s long-running, ongoing project Experimental Relationship, which was compiled along with some shots from For Your Eyes Only — which she describes as “a visual love letter to an intimate lover” — into her critically acclaimed photobook of the same name.
As well as themes surrounding gender relations, Experimental Relationship also explores the cultural differences between Liao and Moro’s nationalities. “When I met him, I never thought I would have any bias against [the fact he was] Japanese, but I did. And so did he,” the artist admits. “We had been brainwashed by our countries about each other.” This sense of identity is very strong in the photos in Experimental Relationship with images of Chinese takeaways and Liao in a traditional Chinese dress interspacing the more candid, sexual scenes.
Aside from this extra contextual layer, it really is Liao’s powerful femininity that is the most striking feature of the photographs, which depict the couple in a variety of surreal and sensual scenes, from staged nipple pinching (a humorous take on the famous painting, Presumed Portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrees and One of Her Sisters, no doubt) to dominant lip biting, or Liao having breakfast off her partner’s body and rolling him up as a sushi roll. It’s refreshing that, for a change, it’s the man who is naked in the majority of the images, whilst Liao stays comfortably in her sports shorts and polo-top. She stares directly into the camera with a cool, controlled expression — a marked departure from the Hollywood habit of exposing every part of a woman’s body but her face in movie posters. Experimental Relationship is not just about challenging Chinese perceptions, it also subverts stereotypes that are ever present in the supposedly ‘woke’ Western world.
Liao still insists, however, that her US audience is far more accepting of her subversive work. “[In China] I only show my work in serious art venues, because [these] types of ideas are still not accepted in public,” she explains, whereas in America it’s perceived as “fresh to see some different ideas [concerning] gender identities”. That being said, attitudes are changing, and despite — or maybe because of — the difficult cultural questions her work raises, Liao believes her photography resonates more with a Chinese audience. “Especially young women,” she reveals. “They feel me.”
But in fact it’s Liao’s parents who are her number one fans and the greatest converts to her frank imagery. “In the beginning… they would try and hide [my pictures] from other family members. Now, my dad sometimes even asks for some specific photos to proudly share with his friends.” With this in mind, it’ll be interesting to track and compare the reactions to her two upcoming shows taking place on opposite sides of the world, one in her native country at Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival (23 November—2 January 2019), and the other in her adoptive home, as part of the group exhibition At Home: in the American West in December, presented by The California Sunday Magazine and Aperture Foundation.
So, with critical acclaim, a new photobook and a wide range of international shows under her belt in 2018, what can we expect from Pixy Liao in the coming year? We asked her if she’d consider doing a similar project to Memphis, Tennessee — a record of her first encounters with a city “untouched by time” — but in her current East-Coast home. “Never,” she replies shortly. “Brooklyn, and NYC in general, is too crowded and too fast-paced. I could never just take my time to drive around… slowly set up my large format camera and take a photo,” Liao explains. “I don’t work well under pressure.”
But despite this New York no-no, Liao still seems dedicated to her cause of sharing her happiness and spreading alternative female roles to the masses. “Young girls still have a chance to change their life” she states. “It’s up to them to decide what type of relationship they want to choose. If I didn’t meet Moro, I might never be as happy as I am now.”
“Experimental Relationship Vol. 1” is available now.
Follow Pixy Liao on Instagram here.
All images courtesy of Pixy Liao.