Le Liu
- Anna Lilli Garai
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Le Liu is a Chinese painter based in Glasgow. He works with acrylic and oil on canvas, often reworking scenes from classical mythology and old master paintings. The figures in his works are usually shown without heads, shifting attention to the body, skin, and physical presence rather than identity. He studied fine art in Wuhan and completed his master’s degree at the Glasgow School of Art. His work has been shown at the London Art Biennale, the Affordable Art Fair London, and Glasgow International, and he has been shortlisted for the British Art Prize and the BADA Art Prize.
Liu often starts from compositions by artists like Titian or Rubens, then rebuilds them with altered color, scale, and focus. Faces disappear, gestures and flesh remain. The scenes keep their mythological roots, but the viewpoint is contemporary. His interest in the nude is tied to personal experience. Growing up in China, he encountered strong taboos around the body. Painting headless figures became a way to confront that, while also removing hierarchy, status, and portrait likeness.
As a queer artist, he approaches classical themes from outside Western and heterosexual traditions. Mythological stories are not treated as distant ideals, but as charged situations between bodies, belief, power, and desire. Technically, he builds his paintings through heavy layering and fluid paint, letting earlier marks be covered and reworked. The surface stays active, dense, and physical.
Across series such as Attempting to Compromise Between Concealment and Exposure, Madness Voyage, and Party Business, Liu uses art history as a framework, but keeps the focus on the paresent: bodies without faces, belief without certainty, and scenes balanced between attraction and discomfort.
