The striking symbols in Liu’s paintings pulsate with a nihilist or existentialist philosophy in the vein of Albert Camus and Franz Kafka, whose work the artist has referenced throughout her oeuvre. Liu’s interest in the book The Architectural Uncanny by Anthony Vidler further elaborates on the metaphorical potential of buildings and interiors in the work to speak to our modern condition.

The artist repeatedly returns to animal subjects as counterparts to her human figures. Recognizing both wild and domesticated animals as unknowable, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, Liu’s use of ostriches, frogs, and kangaroos as symbols occasions a fissure between the cycle of mutual observation found in human society. Employed in her paintings, they act to highlight the confusion of spectacle and the sense of alienation that can attend a condition of being observed.

Lyn Liu was born in Beijing, China, and is based in New York. Liu works primarily in painting, printmaking, and independent publications. She received her MFA from School of the Arts, Columbia University, New York, in 2022, and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2016. Liu also attended École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, from 2017 to 2020. Her first exhibition with Kasmin, Dogville, was mounted in 2022.