Liu Le
GLAUCOMAARISE
December 28, 2024 – January 19, 2025
Galerie Urs Meile • 弦 xián
Opening:
Saturday, December 28, 2024; 4pm
press release english
Galerie Urs Meile • 弦 xián is pleased to present GLAUCOMAARISE, a solo exhibition by artist Liu Le (b. 1995, Shenzhen, China). The exhibition showcases the artist’s multifaceted reflections on painting actions and life experiences. In Liu’s creative process, randomness and order leap back and forth, resulting in works that engage viewers in an almost paradoxical dialogue. They carry a sense of lightness through spontaneity, yet simultaneously bear the real weight accumulated through physical actions.
The exhibition title combines romantic and pathological imagery both phonetically and semanti- cally. The term “rose” is grafted as a phonetic bridge, while the act of “kneeling” pulls reality back into dramatic corporeal expression. The spatial arrangement of the exhibition reflects Liu’s interplay between canvas, space, and audience. By embracing deviation, he emphasizes the initiative of the painting space itself—as a sensory mixture, whether flat or convex. Traces left by physical constraints are seen as evidence of collaboration with painting rather than defects.
Two of the works in this exhibition were painted on site by Liu Le, challenging himself to respond directly to the present and reflecting on the weight and temporality of painting. Liu focuses on the solidity of painting as an action, which leads him to view creation as a vital responsibility beyond regular daily routines. His choice of medium feels instinctive, like an innate affinity. For Liu, painting is a thrilling experience of relentless competition and oscillation between withdrawal and return.
Liu Le also holds a daily job with strong social attributes—as a clerk at a trend buyers shop. The blurring and overlapping of these two social roles entertains him. He views the store as a “theater”, where vibrant daily interactions continually stimulate his perception, with these fleeting impressions naturally finding their way into his art. For Liu, painting is both an act of production and dissolution—a means to confront complexity. Through this exhibition, he seeks to expose, to proclaim, and to remain as truthful to his inner self as possible.
Liu Le (b. 1995, Shenzhen, China) graduated from RI-School One in the United States, and received his Bachelor’s Degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Now he lives and works in Shanghai, China. Liu Le’s practice primarily revolves around painting, with his works not only appearing on canvas, paper, fabric, and even tape, but also ex-tending into sculpture and installation as mediums for his playful exploration and reinterpretation of painting. Treating “pigment” as a material substance, he experiments with various methods to produce, discover, and delve into all kinds of “smear marks”, aiming to reflect in color and texture the feelings and experiences generated by the intertwining of the inner individual and the outer environment. Based on certain significant things and emotions that human beings seek to preserve in the external world, his recent reflections have centered around spontaneous reactions and encounters of the current situation, arising from a wilted, failed, and futile “transient act of repair”.
