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