Art, at its most essential level, attempts to fix in space the experiences that pass like sand in an hourglass. On the whole, reality is almost always more complex than can be accurately represented, and meaning is missed in the variety of expression. But Shiyuan Liu doesn’t want to miss a thing.

Of all the ways to describe “For Jord,” at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, detailed rises to the forefront almost immediately. In any medium, Shiyuan extracts the most meaning she can out of each material and image. “For Jord” is about the ways in which we define things, and how those definitions change through time or culture.

In her video work, For the Photos I Didn’t Take, For the Stories I Didn’t Read, Shiyuan re-contextualizes the Hans Christian Anderson story “The Little Match Seller,” using images found on the internet to represent each word in the story, displayed over wintery, holiday imagery and gentle music. She is expansive in representing the language of the story, using girls from a wide variety of socio-economic background and culture to represent “SHE” or “HER,” for example. In this way, Shiyuan is challenging the viewers own biases and automatic associations with certain words, images, or concepts.

Her photo series as well, entitled For Jord and Almost Like Rebar, again encourage a broadening of perspective, illustrating the complex cultural programming that everyone has when it comes to theoretically universal imagery. The tessellated photographs and video stills of animals, plants, pianos, diced onions, etc. culminate in an overwhelming sensation not only that you alone could never hold all the answers, but that even the most basic definitions and associations can vary.

This challenge extends even further with the most abstracted of Shiyuan’s work, her Cross Away series. These grids of pigments, kaleidoscopic and variegated yet masterful in their command over color theory and balance, close the conceptual loop of the show. While life may be infinitely complex and ever changing, in each moment we have the ability to stop, to look, and – if we’re lucky – to find something beautiful in the chaos.

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
1010 N. Highland Ave
Los Angeles, CA, 90038
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