Of his own accord, Liao Yibai has gained a precise grasp of the advantages inherent in stainless steel. He employs stainless steel contemporariness (including its technological elements and fashionable traits) to place his works in the current cultural context. The shiny surface texture and the carefully crafted streamlined forms showcase a machine aesthetic and grasp the tense relationship between bodily freedom and scientific control. But the most creative application of the material, the most unique aspect, is in his transformation of the oppositional textures of softness and hardness. Here the absurd logic presents itself yet again. He intentionally uses solid stainless steel to present soft and flowing liquids such as rippling water, splashing mud, pouring rain and splotching blood, making for an excellent display of the rich expressive capabilities of stainless steel and endowing cold hard metal with softness.
Liao Yibai was born in 1971, Jiang An, Sichuan, China. He graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1997, Chongqing, China and taught at the Art Design Department at Chongqing University from 2001 to 2005. Currently, he lives and works in New York, U.S.
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