Liu Xiaodong is one of China’s most compelling contemporary painters, renowned for his raw, emotionally charged depictions of real people in real places.
Working on location, from remote villages to rapidly changing city streets, Liu creates large, cinematic paintings brimming with empathy, tension, and insight. This book brings together paintings, sketches, photographs, and diary notes to offer the most comprehensive review of Liu’s process and vision yet. From Cuba to South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Greenland, and beyond, Liu’s itinerant practice maintains no fixed abode and instead embraces wildly diverse geographies and peoples as encountered by the artist in his travels.
A vivid portrait of an artist who confronts the world directly, painting life exactly as it unfolds.
Contributors
Ossian Ward
Author
Ossian Ward is director of content at the Lisson Gallery and an established writer on contemporary art. Previously chief art critic at Time Out London, he has contributed to major art magazines and newspapers, edited ArtReview and V&A Magazine, worked at The Art Newspaper, and published acclaimed books such as Look Again: How to Experience the Old Masters.
