By manipulating, experimenting, and critically examining whichever medium she implements in her work, Beili Liu‘s art in her solo at Vessel Gallery shows a truly genuine connection to and reverence for the material. Exploring significant themes of Materiality and Objecthood in art, Liu’s physical or conceptual outcome of that play becomes the genesis of a new installation or other two-dimensional art. Liu embraces a broad range of mediums and materials: from salt, water, needle, and thread, to digitally processed images, video, and sound.

At Vessel, Liu features artworks of incredible skill that look like they are products of both tranquil meditation and arduous feats. The delicate cutting throughout the Affine series and the restrained char of vellum in the Lapse series are exemplary illustrations of an articulate and experienced artist. The installation of two sharpened pieces of birch wood suspended and anchored by long thin strands of thread and needles in the upstairs gallery is an installation that should not go unseen while it is in Oakland. 

Born in Jilin, China and now living in Austin, Texas, Liu acknowledges much of her work is ignited by a conversation between the very disparate value systems she has experienced. Beili Liu’s time and process based installations are concurrently culturally specific and overlapping, and create themes that explore those moments when natural and cultural forces congregate. Beili Liu’s installations and works have also been exhibited at the Norwegian National Art and Culture Center; National Art Museum, Lithuania; Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai; Galerie an der Pinakothek de Modern, Munich; Granary gallery, Finland; Austin Museum of Art, Museum of Art and History; and locally at the Chinese Culture Foundation, San Francisco. This exhibition is a real treasure to have on view in Oakland, and enriches the arts in the city in multpile ways.

“Between Wind and Water” is at Vessel Gallery throughFebruary 18.