LIAO YIBAI

Of his own accord, Liao Yibai has gained a precise grasp of the advantages inherent in stainless steel. He employs stainless steel’s contemporariness (including its technological elements and fashionable traits) to place his works in the current cultural context. The shiny surface texture and the carefully crafted streamlined forms showcase a machine aesthetic and grasp the tense relationship between bodily freedom and scientific control. But the most creative application of the material, the most unique aspect, is in his transformation of the oppositional textures of softness and hardness. Here the absurd logic presents itself yet again. He intentionally uses solid stainless steel to present soft and flowing liquids such as rippling water, splashing mud, pouring rain and splotching blood, making for an excellent display of the rich expressive capabilities of stainless steel and endowing cold hard metal with softness.