ABOUT&CONTACT
Statement:
Penghang’s practice examines the missing and lost parts of our life, which have left traces in our memory and drive us to return to then repeatedly, consciously or unconsciously.
By introducing the concept of light, he focuses on the visible but immaterial attributes of light, which make it equivalent to the nature of the things lingering in our memories: we can feel their presence in the depths of our minds, but they can never be touched.
Light can always attract people’s gaze and lead their eyes to a specific area. But this area is also full of illusionary lures – paralleling the classical Greek tale of the painting competition between Zeuxis and Parrhasius. When Zeuxis was drawn to the object behind the veil on Parrhasius’s painting and attempted to lift it, he discovered that the veil was merely part of the painting itself. From this point, Penghang’s practice explores the objects that attract us – Is the object behind the veil, which we mistake for the truth, actually an illusion? Just as dreams reveal the truth of our desire, but dreams are also another form of illusion.
Exploring the sad beauty among the things cannot be touched, Penghang’s research interests also include Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis theory, especially the concept of ‘lack’, which is like a void area in our being: our desire is produced from here, and then return to here as a vain and illusionary complement for this void. He combined it with the concept of ‘emptiness’ in Eastern philosophy, to reinterpret the tangled relation between ‘truth’ and ‘illusion’.
Penghang Liu (刘鹏航）
Education:
MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art
BFA Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts
Group Exhibitions (Selected):
Arte Laguna Prize Finalists’s Exhibition, Arsenale Nord, Venice, 2024
Manque, O bjet petite ‘a’, Greatorex St Gallery, London, 2024
Ruthin International Art Festival, Ruthin Castle, Wales, 2024
In the Emancipation of Self, D Contemporary, London, 2024
Thumb 2, Ladder Space, Copenhagen, 2023
MA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, 2023
Monophony, Royal College of Art & Royal College of Music, London, 2023
Everything is Temporary, 3 Locks Brewing Company, London, 2023
Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall, OrigiNature, Chengdu, 2021
BFA Degree Show, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, 2021
The Building as a Ghost without a Shell, Hua International, Beijing, 2021
To Replace the Shining Stars, Building 23 Artist Community, Beijing, 2020
Evolution, Enjoy·Art Museum, Beijing, 2020
Awards:
18th Arte Laguna Prize (Finalist), Venice, 2024
Curation:
Ruthin International Arts Festival (Associated Curator), Wales, 2024
Contact:
Email: liupenghangart@gmail.com
Instagram: liu.penghang
WeChat: Liu-Penghang
