Liu Yang’s Photogram Works: Another Planet
Liu Yang, female, was born in 1976 in China, moved to USA in March 2022, currently is living and working in Peoria.
Liu began to like photography from 2005. Her works have been published in magazines. Since 2015, she has been obsessed with contemporary art and learned that photography can be an expression, not just a record. Moreover, she went to Europe to see the Venice Biennale and Cassel Documenta, and visited Thomas Ruff, a representative of Dusseldorf Academy of Arts, in Dusseldorf. In 2017, she began to study and explore Photogram, made many experiments and started to create photogram works. In April 2019, she participated in artist Wang Qingsong’s workshop learning activities.
Liu Yang’s photogram works DREAM TRILOGY are including DREAM, DREAM INCEPTION and ANOTHER PLANET. All the works were created in dark room, she used photographic paper as the materials, but images were not taken by camera, they are photogram. The productions of the images were to place the objects between photographic paper and lights, then exposure. Details of the objects were lost, some were deformed, some were moved. Outline and color of the objects are well designed by self-modified lights. Some of the creations adopted multi-exposure by different lights, just like to use lights to draw on the photo paper. In ANOTHER PLANET, she poured transparent aqua on glass or acrylic plate, let them move and mix naturally to create patterns, and then put objects on it. The preparation of creation usually took some days, and then she eventually realized it in a big dark room.
ANOTHER PLANET ideas were connected with Dream Inception that was a process that Liu Yang took three months to insert cosmic information into her real dream. It aroused her fascination with cosmic themes, imagination of the future, and concern of human fate. When we look at our world from the perspective of the universe, when we see the images that James Webb send back about the deep space billions of light years away, we understand how tiny we are so does the human civilization. ANOTHER PLANET is a bold imagination of what another planet and alien lives could be in artist’s point of view, also in viewer’s imagination when they participate, and what humanity would be after becoming multi-planetary species. The artist hope people don’t forget the sea of stars; don’t be at ease with the comfort brought by technology. ANOTHER PLANET creation is still ongoing.
In the Project Space: George Weers
Like many artists George Weers enjoyed drawing as a child. During school he studied art and entertained the possibility of art school. Unfortunately things like the draft, the Air Force, two tours in South East Asia, marriage, children and jobs pushed his art work into a closet.
After 35 years with Caterpillar and 15 years with the Illinois Air National Guard, George retired, took inventory and realized that what he really wanted to do was return to art. He dug-out his watercolors and dedicated himself to relearning the vicissitudes of the elusive medium.
Dedication and daily practice have resulted in memberships in the Sangamon Watercolor Society, Illinois Watercolor Society and the Missouri Watercolor Society. His watercolors have been displayed in various regional shows and, in 2016, his work was included in an exhibition hung at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
George’s subjects include portraiture, figurative pieces, landscapes and seascapes.
The works placed in this exhibition reflect adventures in in foreign lands, Central Illinois subjects and, of course, portraits of friends, family and other interesting subjects.