CCNY | Pixy Yijun Liao | Let’s Make Love | A CCNY Darkroom Residency solo exhibition

Let’s Make Love, a solo exhibition by 2013 CCNY Darkroom Resident Pixy Yijun Liao, mixes two recent bodies of work – Experimental Relationship and For Your Eyes Only – and offers a playful but challenging look at intimacy and gender roles. This exhibition marks the second of four solo exhibitions from the recipients of the 2013 CCNY Darkroom Residency Program.

Pixy Yijun Liao says about the two projects that make up Let’s Make Love:

As a woman brought up in China, I used to think I could only love someone who is older and more mature than me, who can be my protector and mentor. Then I met my current boyfriend, Moro, who is 5 years younger than me, I felt that whole concept of relationships changed, all the way around. I became the person who has more authority & power. One of my male friends even questioned how I could choose a boyfriend the way a man would choose a girlfriend. And I thought, “Damn right. That’s exactly what I’m doing, & why not!”

I started to experiment with this relationship. I would set up all kinds of situations for Moro and I to perform in the photos. By exploring the alternative possibilities of man and woman relationship, these photos question what is the norm of a heterosexual relationships, what will happen if man & woman exchange their roles of sex & roles of power. And partly because my boyfriend is Japanese, and I am Chinese, this project also describes a love and hate relationship.

For Your Eyes Only is a visual love letter to an intimate lover. I am interested in the mundane life, in finding things and making fun of it, liberating it from what it is. This project is a combination of daily life and performance with a naughty attitude.

Born and raised in Shanghai, Pixy Yijun Liao is a fine art photographer currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Liao’s photographs have been exhibited internationally, including NordArt (Büdelsdorf, Germany), kunst licht Gallery (Shanghai, China), Arario Gallery (New York, NY), Jen Bekman Gallery (New York, NY), VT Artsalon (Taipei, Taiwan), Pingyao International Photography Fest (Shanxi, China), etc. She had solo shows at Adam Shaw Gallery (Memphis, TN) in 2008, Chinese American Art Council (New York, NY) in 2011 and at Kips Gallery (Seoul, Korea) in 2013.

Liao received the En Foco New Works Award in 2012, and has won spots in Flash Forward – Emerging Photographers 2011 (Magenta, Canada), Photography Now 2009 (Center of Photography at Woodstock), and Hey, Hot Shot (Jen Bekman Gallery) in 2008. Liao was also a Honorable Mention at the New York Photo Awards 2009 / New York Photo Festival and a finalist of ITS#10 Photo Award (Trieste, Italy), and was most recently awarded, in collaboration with her partner Takahiro Morooka, a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) 2013 Fellowship in Photography. She has done a studio residency at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and has been a resident artist at Woodstock AIR program in 2010 and at The Camera Club of New York Darkroom Residency Program in 2013. Liao holds a MFA in photography from University of Memphis. Her website is www.bloodypixy.com.

The CCNY Darkroom Residency Program offers local photographers much-needed workspace in New York City as well as access to the CCNY community and programs. Each year, emerging photographers living in New York City are invited to apply for this program. The four recipients of the 2013 CCNY Darkroom Residency Program – Pierre Le Hors, Pixy Yijun Liao, Francesco Palombi, and Brea Souders – are the second group of residents to have solo exhibitions, thanks to the generous support of The Jerome Foundation. For more information about the CCNY Darkroom Residency Program, please visit our website.