Mandy Liao (Liao Man)

Beijing, China

Born in Chongqing in 1983, Mandy Liao (Liao Man) is passionate about painting since a young age. Attracted to the “romance” she experienced through painting, Mandy decided to pursue her passion and started studying at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute since high school. She finished her undergraduate study in 2005, with a focus in oil painting. Since then, Mandy is active in the art scene while her works were exhibited widely, including the Art Beijing 2007, Art Singapore 2009 and the Shanghai Art Fair in 2013. Mandy is like a storyteller in the world of oil painting. Except for the visual fulfillment, her artworks also carry beautiful tales that caught the audience’s eyes. She is good at painting with dark and simple tone, through which she narrates the discovery and observation she gets in daily life.

“Serenity” is in the core of her paintings. Through simplifying the use of colours together with her bold strokes of paint, she often set off the character of her subject distinctly. She is also expert in revealing the contradicting realities she conceives through the style of surrealism. There is no clear evidence of masculinity in her paintings as a whole, and yet her strength were shown in details: On a soft single-toned background, she often depicts the figures with shades of black, grey and white, establishing a strong contrast visually. It is as if she is telling the whole world, boldly- that silence is the most powerful language of all. On the other hand, she is also very sensitive to the material she is engaging with- the oil paint itself. For instance, through occasional strokes of oil paints on the single-toned background, she adds a stylistic texture to her paintings. These subtle arrangements not only intensify the layering of her works, but also enhance their eloquence in narrating the conflicting realities in her eyes. With her distinctive perspective and life-like surrealist style, Mandy has painted the tales of our time, one after another: the real picturesque stories in a dream-like tone.