We Met in A Dream — Kathy Liao

Grasping Flies

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

I Lost It

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Protectors

Marker and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Stuck

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

A Safe Place to Collect Non Sequiturs

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Dissolution

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Interoception: Vastness

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Bus Route #2

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Rays

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Four Bites

Collage and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

For the Possibility of Release

Gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Fault

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Green Eyeballs

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Crawl

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Timeless Drift

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Familiar Alley

Gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Half-dressed

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Hard Boiled Eggs

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

I Forgot

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Window Seat

Collage and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

What the Body Felt Like

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

What's Left of Grief

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Misty Onramp

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Inevitable Tsunami

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Parts Theatre

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Feeling of Discordancy

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Interoception: Breath

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Tools other than a Shovel

Marker and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Explorer

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Waipuo

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

What We Buried

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

You Can Die Falling

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Interoception: Under

Collage and marker on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Interoception: Syzygy

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

Interoception: Torso

Collage, marker, and gouache on paper

14” x 11” (framed)

Photo credit: EG Schempf

I woke up one day from a dream where my little sister turned into a fly. I reached and grasped for her, to protect her, to keep her safe. I felt deep panic, guilt, and dread. In the moments before waking, I cupped three dead flies and I couldn’t tell which one was her.

I started a dream journaling practice a year ago. Each drawing is a strange affirmation and quiet unraveling of the human drama in my mind. My work exists in the fluid state between experience, memory, dream, and place. In an attempt to translate the fleeting and subconscious, at the intersection of history and time, the drawings shapeshift and settle into allegories of their own.

Publications:

“Kathy Liao: We Met In A Dream,” Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art

Exhibition Catalog