Crystal Liu: i always meant to love you

In her seventh solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery, Crystal Liu presents five new series of works on paper. Using a limited palate of black, blue and gold, Liu weaves poignantly distilled narratives of life’s emotional landscape in a delicate balance between optimism and melancholy.

The protagonists in Liu’s tales are the basic elements of earth and sky: stars, moons, water, and flora. Water plays a key role throughout, as mirror, rain, tears – sometimes threatening, other times purifying and nourishing. Night is the setting for dreams and golden stars that symbolize hope. Trees bend under the weight of gilded burdens but they are survivors, rooted and steadfast. White chrysanthemums represent grieving and loss in Chinese culture; they populate many of the works, spread across fields or floating in a glittering cosmos.

Crystal Liu’s parents emigrated from China to Toronto, Canada, where she was born in 1980. Liu majored in photography at the Ontario College of Art & Design and received an MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. She resides in San Francisco.