Photo credit: Jennifer Wetzel

I had a wonderful studio visit with Jennifer Wetzel, editor of Kawsmouth Blog. Here’s an excerpt from the interview. You can read the full interview here.

MAY 8, 2018

A studio visit with Kathy Liao

Kathy Liao’s paintings stem from a broad range of personal and social experiences. Each of them could inspire a healthy body of work, but combined they create a more complex fabric of an individual experience. She paints her personal memories; from early childhood in Taiwan, to living as immigrants in California and growing more American, her father’s death, Transpacific relationship with her Grandmother and, of course, her present reality.

Though the painting process, Liao recollects memories, in fine detail, to create large-scale paintings of these experiences, which hold clues to the social context of the times, (her family standing in front of their first house in California with a recently purchased car and yet-to-be-born sister, which began the chain migration of her family’s path to U.S. citizenship) to her personal vantage point (Liao looking over the shoulder of her father, post-surgery, into their backyard pool)

Dual identity is something that Liao allows to show through in her paintings, and the contrast of elements creates a more interesting and honest story. A few of these are: Taiwan / USA ; FaceTime / Real life interactions ; Memory / A photo ; Leisure / Hard work. We discussed these topics and their appearance in her paintings in person in her East Crossroads studio, and over email. 

See the full interview here