For Immediate Release
Pixy Liao: Comfort Zone
23 January – 9 March 2024
Opening Reception: 20 January 2024, Saturday; 4:00-6:30pm (artist will be present)
Artist Talk: 20 January 2024, Saturday; 5:00-6:00pm (conducted in English)
Venue: Blindspot Gallery (15/F, Po Chai Industrial Building, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong)
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10:30am to 6:30pm (Sunday and Monday, by appointment only); closed on public holidays
Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Pixy Liao’s first solo exhibition at Blindspot Gallery, marking her debut solo exhibition in HongKong. The exhibition titled “Comfort Zone” features selected works recently created by Liao, encompassing photography, video, andready-made sculpture. Liao is known for carefully staged photographs of her and partner-collaborator Moro. Her works upend traditional
representations of heterosexual relationships by inverting gender roles, often placing Moro as the subservient male muse and herself as
the domineering artist-orchestrator. Tongue-in-cheek and imbued with a sense of humor, Liao’s work straddles between the performative
and the autobiographical, unfurling her and Moro’s growing relationship.

Experimental Relationship is an ongoing photographic series which began in 2007, featuring
Liao and Moro in quotidian everyday scenes, in various configurations and across different
locations. Oftentimes Liao is captured in positions of dominance over Moro, inverting theprevalent male gaze in the history of images. In After Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (2019),
Liao holds up the camera release shutter, looking defiantly at the viewer, whilst Moro lies
lifeless and vulnerable across her lap, dressed only in a maid apron. The photograph takes
inspiration from the 18th century sculpture Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss by Antonio Canova,
but with a twist. Liao takes on the role of Cupid, son of Venus, reenacting the moment before
he revives the goddess Psyche (played by Moro).
In Story Time (2022), a chair-seated Liao reads Emmanuelle, a classic French erotica written
in 1967, on female sexual exploration, to the naked Moro who kneels on the floor by her side.
The scarlet red of Liao’s dress, nails, and lips underscores risqué undertones, punctuating theserene afternoon with an erotic allure. In the room imbued with vintage cinematic warmth,
Liao stares down at Moro, as if hinting in secrecy a seductive message…
Contrary to portrayals positioning Liao above Moro, Liao’s Bed Wrestling series (2019)
depicts the couple as equal rivals in combat. The series playfully captures the duo sporting
spandex singlets, posing in choreographed wrestling stances. They fight and tackle one
another, pulling each other’s arms and legs. The staging of these interactions on a hotelmattress even hints at sexual connotations. In Bed Wrestling 3014 (Rear Chin Lock), Liao
gives Moro the neck hold, locking him powerlessly in position. She describes pro-wrestlingas violent, and yet, as the fighters become entangled in combat, there is an awkward
intimacy. It is akin to a relationship where two lovers are tied between the opposing forces oflove and hate, struggling for power. “As we grow older together, our relationship changes…
Part of it is about sharing power with him,” Liao says.
The titular work of the exhibition, Comfort Zone (2020), shows Liao on a beach, crouchedbetween the legs of Moro who wears a Toddland underwear, a gift from the artist, printed
with a vintage-grained image of a woman and a man running hand in hand. Sarcasticallyobjectifying Moro, the photograph closes-up on his buttocks, with a phallic toy attached tohis body dangling above Liao’s head. Looking pleased, Liao peers through the gap between his legs in her girly sunglasses.
Other photographs set on Coney Island Beach in New York where the artist
is based are Two Eggs (2020) and Twisted Eggs (2020), showing a whitecloth pouched with a pair of eggs, a rather amusing play on male testicles.
The male genitalia are historically emblematic of patriarchal power yet
here we see them grabbed between the red nail-varnished hands of
Liao and wittily placed over her crotch. Whereas the penis is a symbol ofauthority, the breast is antithetically the totem of matriarchal nurture.
In Breast Spray (2015), Liao creates a ready-made sculpture by affixing
a silicone breast to a water sprayer filled with milk. She weaponizes thefemale organ by altering the nipple into a nozzle. In the film, Milking thegarden (2015), Liao activates the sculpture, spraying milk at her garden,
and ultimately at Moro.
Liao’s interest in film and sci-fi permeates in Space Girl Met Earth Boy (2022) where we are confronted with a series of cinematic tableaus
portraying the close encounter between space girl and earth boy in a futuristic Zaha Hadid interior. Space girl, played by Liao, who had set
out to eliminate toxic masculinity from the face of the universe ends up falling for her gentle human subject, Moro. In Space Girl Met EarthBoy 4804, the Astro girl gently places her hand over naked earth boy’s abdomen. The room is basked in a golden sunset glow, setting themood for the sci-fi fantasy love story.
Embodying the most private views shared between lovers, For Your Eyes Only is aphotographic series of bodily close-ups wherein palpable images of touch intensify
sensations of intimacy. A hand with red nail varnish draws explicit attention to herfingertips over the other hand which holds onto a Golden Mouse (2014). The skinto-skin contact hints at desire and sensuality. Paralleling the blanketing of hands yet
disparately conveying the emotional synchrony between long lovers, G7b9 (2021)
captures a quiet moment of intimacy between “he” and “she” as they play the piano
keys together. The “uncommon harmony” created from the oddest of chords, G7b9,
embodies a unique synergy only the two can resonate with.

About Pixy Liao
Pixy Liao (b. 1979, Shanghai, China) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with photography, installation, video, and performance to create works that undermine patriarchal
stereotypes in a heterosexual relationship, humorously revealing the multitude of ways to be together. Liao is known for her staged photography where she poses withher partner and collaborator, Moro. Her carefully constructed tableaus culminate into her long-term and on-going photographic project, Experimental Relationship(2007-present). These self-portraits wherein Liao intentionally subverts traditional hierarchies in gender relations, are performative and occasionally bawdy. Liao’s
recent solo exhibitions were held at Centre for Contemporary Photography (Melbourne, 2023), Light Work (New York, 2022), Fotografiska (Tallinn, 2022; Stockholm, 2021;New York, 2021), and The Rencontres d’Arles (Arles, 2019). Liao took part in group exhibitions at Johnson Museum of Art (New York, 2023), X Museum (Beijing, 2023),
Shanghai Centre of Photography (Shanghai, 2023), Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth, 2022), Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (Michigan, 2022), Fotomuseum (Winterthur,Switzerland, 2022), National Gallery of Australia (Sydney, 2020), and HOW Museum (Shanghai, 2020). Her work is collected by Alexander Tutsek – Stiftung (Germany), Fort
Wayne Museum of Arts (USA), He Xiangning Art Museum (China), M+ (Hong Kong), Museum of Fine Arts (USA), The Center for Fine Art Photography (USA), and White Rabbit
Collection (Australia), among others.
About Blindspot Gallery
Set up in 2010, Blindspot Gallery is a Hong Kong-based contemporary art gallery. The gallery began with a primary focus on contemporary photography and imagebased art, and has evolved to include diverse media in contemporary art. The gallery represents both emerging and established artists, mainly from Hong Kong and theregion but also beyond.
For enquiries and media interviews, please contact Ms. Edith Lu at +852 2517 6238 or by email edith@blindspotgallery.com .
Pixy Liao, After Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, 2019, Archival inkjet print, 200 x 150 (Ed. of 1)/ 150 x 112 cm (Ed. of 1)/ 100 x 75 cm (Ed. of 3)/ 50 x 37.5 (Ed. of 5)
Pixy Liao, Comfort Zone, 2020, Archival inkjet print, 200 x 150 (Ed. of 1)/ 150 x 112 cm (Ed. of 1)/ 100 x 75 cm (Ed. of 3)/ 50 x 37.5 (Ed. of 5)
Pixy Liao, Space Girl Met Earth Boy 4804, 2022, Archival inkjet print, 150 x 200 cm (Ed. of 1)/ 112 x 150 cm (Ed. of 1)/ 75 x 100 cm (Ed. of 3)/ 37.5 x 50 (Ed. of 5)
Pixy Liao, G7b9, 2021, Archival inkjet print, 150 x 200 cm (Ed. of 1)/ 112 x 150 cm (Ed. of 1)/ 75 x 100 cm (Ed. of 3)/ 37.5 x 50 (Ed. of 5)(Images courtesy of artist and Blindspot Gallery.)