Vision, Belief, and Symbolism: Printmaker Liao Shiou-ping

He accuses Taiwan's young artists of short-sightedness, of being overly concerned with achieving rank and fame as quickly as possible, and of cashing in on fancy overseas degrees to obtain stable teaching posts even as their art languishes for lack of dedication. "Young artists should be preoccupied with artistic quality, focusing all of their energy on expressing that which is unique to them, not pandering to commercial trends." He continues: "People must believe that there is something greater than themselves-an ideal, a conviction-that is worth pursuing over the course of a lifetime."

Liao Shiou-ping was born in Taipei in 1936, the fourth child out of a family of nine boys and one girl. His father Liao Qinfu was born into a family of tenant farmers, but later received a degree in civil engineering from Taiwan Commercial and Technical College during the period of Japanese rule. He was the only Taiwanese civil engineer to take part in the construction of the Taoyuan Canal, the Jianan Canal, and the Daguan Power Plant at Sun Moon Lake, three projects from that era that that contributed tremendously to economic growth in Taiwan. After World War II, he established his own construction company, which he started from scratch.

In 1939, the Liao family moved near Longshan Temple. The majesty of the temple, its florid old-world decorations, and the scores of devout worshippers prostrate in supplication left an indelible impression on the young Liao Shiou-ping. At that time, the temple had yet to be enveloped by urban development. Instead, there was just an open courtyard where he and his friends would play with spinning tops.

When he was seven years old, his mother came down with typhoid fever, which, due to the lack of medical sophistication, was in those days a formidable disease with a high death rate. His father was beside himself with worry. He would frequently take his son with him to Longshan Temple to pray for his wife's speedy recovery with candles, incense, and spirit money. These images exerted a firm hold on his imagination, becoming a basis for his creative endeavors later on.

As a small child, Liao would climb onto the table to look at his father's building blueprints. By the time he reached Datong Middle School he was receiving instruction from venerable painter Wu Dongcai. In high school, his works were selected for island-wide exhibitions, and in 1954 he entered the fine arts department at National Taiwan Normal University, where he studied under Huang Junbi, Lin Yu-shan, Liao Jichun, and Chen Huikun, all masters of Chinese painting who had come to Taiwan from mainland China. He was nonetheless continually frustrated by his inability to clinch a spot in Taiwan's competitive exhibitions.

At the introduction of Wu Dongcai, Liao began extracurricular study with the venerable painter Li Shiqiao. Li empathized with his student's disillusionment, recounting how he himself had only gained admission to Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts) after two initial failed efforts. He encouraged Liao, saying, "Don't worry what other people think, just keep painting!"

The "Life Symbols" series makes broad use of diverse materials like oil and acrylic paint, pencil sketches, wood, and gold leaf. The base color is red, which conveys the connotation of "the hidden order of nature and traditional festive joy that yet permeates the intricacy of modern life."Double Wealth / 2008 / acrylic and gold leaf on canvas

Expanding horizons abroad

After finishing at National Taiwan Normal University, Liao was assigned a steady teaching position under the centralized job allocation system, but his tremendous desire to further his studies overseas was not to be denied. He was worried about the financial and vocational uncertainties of artistic life, but his mother encouraged him, saying, "What are you worried about? You've got so many brothers-if everyone eats one bite less, it's enough to make you a meal!" Feeling the support from his family, he decided to dedicate himself to his art.

In 1962 he went to Japan to major in painting at Tokyo University of Education (now Tsukuba University). Outside of his major, he took graphic design classes from Masato Takahashi, because "At the time I felt that making a living in the arts was very daunting, and it would be best to study something practical in order to make a living," recalls Liao. Though he never did have to really rely on graphic design for income, the lessons he absorbed in color and composition proved useful to his later work as a painter.

It was in Japan that he discovered printmaking. Unlike painting by hand, in printmaking a piece of wood (or other material) is used as an intermediary to the creation of the final image. A dazzling array of printing forms and techniques were in common practice in the Japanese world: besides the relief printing that was common in Taiwan at that time, there were also intaglio prints using copper, zinc, or gold plates, lithographs, and screen printing (serigraphy). Feeling the endless possibilities in printmaking enhanced by modern technology, Liao began studying intaglio printing and lithography.

It was a time of flourishing artistic accomplishment in Japan that posed an intimidating challenge to young up-and-comers. Liao gave an excellent account of himself in this formidable environment, earning numerous awards. His oil painting series "Gate Gods" won first prize the first time he entered a local competition, much to the astonishment of the judges. Unfortunately for him, national pride and xenophobia were powerful forces in Japan, and Liao ultimately had to share first-prize honors with a Japanese artist that the judges selected after the fact.

After his professor gave him the blow-by-blow analysis of what had transpired at the competition, he decided to leave Japan after graduating with the equivalent of a master's degree. He set his sights on France because of its deep artistic roots as well as its reputation for trendsetting, and in 1965 began studying oil painting at the Fine Arts Institute of Paris. Away from school, he frequented renowned English printmaker Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 studio.

In the "Knots" series, the artist used the knot as an allegorical critique against people's lack of appreciation of their own prosperity.Knots / 2000 / oil on canvas

Reevaluating the East

In 1965, Liao's oil painting of the old Paris city wall won the silver medal in the Spring Salon Exhibition. But his oil painting instructor, Roger Chastel, gave him some pointed advice: "You're an Easterner from Taiwan; you should be looking for subject matter and a style that's unique to you." Enlightening as the remark was, it did highlight the tension between ideals and economic realities. "Doing landscape oil painting could bring accolades and income, but did I really come halfway around the world to France just to be able to sell a few paintings?" He was nearing 30 years old. Wracked by ambivalence, he would pace the banks of the Seine pondering his alternatives. Should he forsake artistic discovery for coin? Or should he accept the great risk that is the cost of a creative life?

In the end he cast his lot for creativity. In searching for Eastern subject material, he soon realized that his training was thoroughly grounded in European technique and thought processes-tearing himself away from it would require revising his entire aesthetic framework and perception.

For a while Liao was in a creative funk, totally unable to make new works. He would often visit the Guimet Museum and linger amidst the collections of ancient Chinese bronze vessels and the subtly colorful Qing-Dynasty imperial glazed porcelains. "I felt a kindred bond with these great masters from China's past, a connection that transcended the centuries." The experience made him reflect back on the time spent in his youth at Longshan Temple. "The lofty gate is a threshold-the outside is the world of men, and the inside the world of spirits."

The patterns on the bronze vessels and Qing porcelains provided the inspiration behind his "Gate" series, in which he contemplated the relationship between man and the universe, and sought to illustrate the constant harmonious ebb and flow of yin and yang. "In life, we pass through a portal to enter the realm of the living; as we make our way forward, we pass through innumerable other gates as we try to make sense of it all." Though there weren't a lot of works in this series, it did reawaken his affinity for his Taiwanese heritage, and like a salmon's instinctive returning upstream to spawn, so did Liao long to turn back to his roots.

For so many years, Liao crisscrossed the globe to share his experience and skill with learners. Today he has come home to Taiwan to continue his artistic quest to reach out across the boundaries of space and time to touch the hearts of others.

Discovering Taiwan in Paris

After many years abroad, the images of his home became stronger in his mind, nourishing his creativity as he absorbed, interpreted, and restructured them. He employed Hayter's methods of many colors for one relief or intaglio print to evoke the ancient decorations and temple idols; Longshan Temple, Spring-Festival couplets, and gate gods convey the image of a harmonious and industrious people. But more than this, he boldly introduced gold, silver, red, and black shades to imbue his work with a celebratory atmosphere, and with his temple series, he successfully created a uniquely Eastern print genre.

Whether referencing rhombus-shaped Chinese New Year greetings, folk deities like the Seventh and Eighth Lord, or the "double happiness" character that symbolizes marital bliss, Liao's work ingeniously melded contemporary artistic concepts with elements of folk culture, using printmaking to simultaneously reinterpret and propagate traditional Taiwanese aesthetic culture. The Parisian artistic community was extremely taken with this accomplishment, and in 1966 he became the first Chinese artist to be granted a residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts.

Though printmaking revealed an entirely new artistic realm to him, copperplate etching required prolonged exposure to noxious chemicals, which over time can cause different levels of chronic injury to the lungs, respiratory system, and the skin. The preliminary step before etching is to apply to the metal a corrosion inhibitor distilled from the solvents toluene, turpentine, and alcohol. Later on, after drawing lines onto the metal with an etching needle, a corrosive substance, a mordant, is added, which then reacts with the unprotected portions, resulting in an etched picture.

In order to create the effect of different depths of etched line, printmakers use three different broad categories of mordants to erode the metal. A strong nitric acid is suitable for creating rough, uneven surfaces; a weaker solution of nitric acid is used when more subtlety is required. For fine lines, ferric chloride is the best choice. Finally, for extremely precise, fine lines, hydrochloric acid, also known as Dutch mordant, is most common.

After submerging the metal plate in the nitric acid, the part being eroded produces bubbles containing the pernicious compounds nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, which over long periods are damaging to the lungs and air passages. The acid itself can stain, burn holes in clothing, and induce skin irritation and disease.

Liao turned the images imprinted on spirit money that Taiwanese burn to enrich the lives of the deceased into geometric symbols, extending the metaphor of the "gate" in his earlier works, probing the dualism of life and death.Future Life / 1972 / silkscreen and embossing

Symbols

In 1968, there was tremendous political and social strife in Paris. Tensions ran extremely high, as students boycotted classes and even took over several campuses. At this time, Liao received an invitation from the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art to put on an exhibition. He decided then and there to relocate to the United States with his family, eventually settling in New York. He took an assistantship at the Pratt Graphics Center in exchange for free access to the studios and printmaking equipment. At Pratt, he was able to study silkscreening while networking within the printmaking community and adding to his repertoire of printmaking techniques.

Liao explains that each print medium produces a different feeling or effect. The lines in a wooden print have a charming simplicity to them, the contrast between light and dark is pronounced, and the print's texture is full of interesting variations arising from the natural grain of the wood; copper plates produce crisp, assertive lines with only subtle contrasts in coloration; lithography allows the artist greater control of the heaviness of the lines as well as evincing a natural "inkiness"; silk screening affords neat, evenly distributed layers of bright color, as in the work of pop artist Andy Warhol, a famous practitioner of the technique.

Artists can achieve creative results through hybrid printmaking by combining two or more different printmaking techniques. Liao elaborates: "Hybrid printmaking frees you from the constraints of more conventional work. You can make really intricate works or something really festive and wild."

After his move to New York, his native land continued to be a fertile wellspring of creative inspiration. Every year at the seventh month of the lunar calendar-"ghost" month-Taiwanese burn spirit money imprinted with images of household items such as combs, locks, scissors, cups, plates, umbrellas, and shoes to enrich the existence of deceased relatives dwelling in the realm beyond. Liao appropriated these images and transformed them into geometric signs that, like his earlier "Gate" series, possessed a symmetry and regularity of form. Thus was his "Symbols" series born.

"An artist's style reflects the rhythms of the society he lives in." Unlike the leisurely pace of life in France, the US with its chessboard-patterned street layout reveals a preference for order and convenience. As a result, he abandoned the hand-drawn lines he employed in France for geometric patterns that evince a meticulous symmetry, drawn with the aid of a straight edge. As before, the works exuded an intricate elegance; Festival of Sun, Yin and Yang, Oriental Festival, and Future Life are print works dating from this period that lead viewers to contemplate the counterpoint between the worlds of yin and yang.

Peaceful Time / 1980 / collagraph and gold leaf on paper

Return to Taiwan

In 1973, his alma mater, National Taiwan Normal University, attracted him back to Taiwan with a job offer to teach various printmaking techniques. While teaching polychrome single print techniques to his students, in his own work he had begun integrating photography into printmaking. For the man who had spent so many of his years abroad, Longshan Temple had become the symbol of the land of his birth. In new works combining silkscreen prints with photography, Pilgrim and Temple, he was able to create a vivid, realistic portrayal of the temple that diverged from his earlier more ethereal representations.

In order to promote printmaking as an art form, Liao not only taught at the College of Chinese Culture (now Chinese Culture University) and National Taiwan University of the Arts, in the evening he maintained a studio in Taipei where he received students, including notables Yang Ying-feng, Li Hsi-chi, and Chu Ge. He received an offer to teach and demonstrate printmaking at an extracurricular summer course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

In 1974 he published The Art of Printmaking with the intention of providing a textbook for his students, and to this day it has remained the gold standard of introductory texts on the subject in the Chinese language. The same year he was recognized as one of 10 "outstanding" young people in Taiwan and an exhibition, the New York International Printmaking Exhibition, featuring approximately 50 foreign works obtained in exchange for some of Liao's own works (which were displayed abroad), was held under the auspices the China Education Society, offering Taiwanese living under the martial law of that period a first glimpse at international print art.

Three years after his return to Taiwan, Liao was so overwhelmed with teaching that he had no time to set aside for his own creative work. Thus, in 1976 he decided to return to the US. The following year he accepted a position at his other alma mater, Tsukuba University in Tokyo, where he was given the responsibility and budget to outfit a printmaking workshop and also establish a working curriculum for the subject. In Japan for two and a half years without his family, he was responsible for all domestic chores and purchases. The vegetables, fruits, kitchenware, and potted plants that he brought home were the inspiration behind his "Seasons" series, which evolved into the "Gathering" and "Chat" series when he returned to the US.

The changes in his life and environment have affected his choice of subject material and the kind of symbolism in his work. His work coalesced into a symbolic criticism of the loss of individuality in a mechanized civilization in Manikin. He appropriated the image of alcohol containers from different countries to symbolize diversity and peaceful coexistence in Garden Party. The knotted rope in the "Knots" series was a reflection on people's lack of appreciation for the own prosperity

In 2000 the "Life Symbols" series developed as an outgrowth of his original "Symbols" series, comprising mixed-media collage works using oil and acrylic paint, pencil drawing, wooden slabs, and gold leaf, and even 2D painting and printmaking, that run the gamut between fully three-dimensional sculpture and bas-relief. Red, symbolizing festivity and prosperity, is the basic shade throughout, offset by gold and silver representing wealth. The symbols are outlined in black and arrayed symmetrically, expressing "the hidden natural order that permeates even the complexity of modern life, and also a kind of traditional celebratory joy."

Dreams and loss

Between 1988 and 1991, Liao received offers to lecture in places throughout China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, and Guangzhou, so as to share his experience and knowledge of printmaking and inject new life into the art form there. His work also found its way into major international art collections at the British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. With regular opportunities to create and teach, the road that stretched in front of him seemed to be free of all obstacles-who could foresee the tragedy ahead that would bring him tumbling down from his seat in the clouds?

In 2002, his wife of more than 40 years, who had been by his side since his student days, died tragically, falling off a cliff while birdwatching alone. After losing the person who had been his encouragement and support, Liao plunged into a deep depression. At night he dreamed of hands reaching out desperately for help; after awakening, the ghastly image remained with him. Even sedatives failed to grant him a restful sleep.

After his brush with tragedy, Liao decided to head back to Taiwan to continue his work, as well as to be close to his parents, who were nearing 100 years old. "My parents were constantly in and out of the hospital," he says, "and something about that made me realize the impermanence of life and accept it." It was only after this epiphany that he was able to move beyond the death of his wife.

He decided to channel the terror of his nightmares into his work. In 2003, he began work on his "Dreams" series, conveying the duality of yin and yang, life and death, through images of outstretched hands reaching upward from the abyss, spirit money fluttering in the wind. Simple, clear images conjure forth a phantasmagoric dreamscape and strange, ineffable emotions that entangle the mind.

However, from nightmares and sleeplessness to artistic creation, the process of mining such dark material was daunting. "It was right out of Goethe's Faust: a realm where no feet have tread, where no man has passed." It was a road with no signposts and no shelter, and without courage and determination to explore such a haunted landscape, he might find himself traumatized and forced into emotional withdrawal.

In "Dreams", it was as though he were finally shattering a mold: the formality, balance, and rationality of his earlier artistic language was replaced by chaos, uncertainty, and even arbitrariness. In 2005, he completed Timeless, a collage of oil painting and gold foil. The symbolism of his early "Gate" series was still present, but the image of the gate itself was replaced by spirit money, which is burned by the living as a way to enrich relatives in the spirit world; therefore, the money symbolized that, although he and his wife were separated by the boundary between this realm and the next, he nonetheless fervently desired her existence there to be tranquil and prosperous.

His 2008 installation piece entitled Speechless features a canvas painted yellow to represent the nurturing power of the earth; out of the earth erupt pairs of hands stretching open to welcome the light; in front of the painting, out of several simple round stools, sculpted hands like dried branches reach upward, casting behind a myriad silhouettes of every shape, commenting on the paradox of life and death as but a reflection of one another.

(facing page, bottom) The "Manikin" series criticizes the loss of individualism endemic in modern, mechanized society.Manikin / 1986 / silkscreen

An artist until the end

Born into a family with a strong work ethic, not only has Liao devoted his entire life to making art, he has sought to keep his work accessible in terms of both taste and price. In 1983, he petitioned the government to put on what came to be called the International Biennial Print and Drawing Exhibition. The first year the event was host to delegates from over 70 countries, with more than 1500 works on display, successfully introducing Taiwan's homebred printmaking talent to the whole world.

In 1984, his father, after years of hard work and perseverance, established the Howard Hotel. All nine of his sons contributed to the endeavor, with Liao Shiou-ping taking the role of artistic supervisor. In order to furnish young Taiwanese artists with a platform for displaying their talents, as well as exposing overseas hotel guests to Taiwan's flourishing fine arts scene up close, he created the Howard Salon, the first such gallery to be located in a five-star hotel.

At 73, Liao Shiou-ping says that he's not about to stop making art-after all, he's been doing just that overseas for more than 40 years, having survived any number of aesthetic shakeups and trends during that time. He says though that movements are ephemeral, and that he's been relying on his Eastern aesthetic philosophy for years in the attempt to reach across national borders, even space and time, to touch people's hearts and souls. That, to him, is art's purpose, and it is the credo that has propelled him throughout his career.