Zhang Liyu (b. 1965, Tianjin, China)
Graduated from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, in 1991, majored in print. Currently the professor and postgraduate tutor of the Sculpture Department, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.
Living in New York
Liyu Zhang strives for a kind of objectivity in his artistic practice, using a third eye to look at culture and interpret it. He consciously uses western materials and methods as a distancing device, while exploring his personal philosophy. In this regard we may see his practice at a further remove from tradition .
Liyu Zhang sees his work as conceptually and experimentally based, in which the process itself is the defining characteristic of the work. This may be observed, for example, in the titling of the works. Each artwork is titled with the dates on which the artist began and completed the work, so that the work exists in a sense as its own documentation, and as a record of the artist’s intent and method at that moment in time.