We Have No Method to Know the Truth

作品賞析

LIOU Yi-Lan is a self-taught artist. Selling pickled cabbage in a traditional market, she used her free time after work to paint. Never formally trained in the arts, she has a distinctive style, unrestrained in form and bold in composition. The painting The Truth Will Always Elude Us is an examination and critique of media madness. In this painting, the woman on TV with the microphone symbolizes a media personality. Her enlarged mouth hints at the media’s slick way with words. The people in front of the TV have exaggerated eyes and ears, signifying attentive watching and listening. The artist believes that the information spread by the media has been pre-screened and packaged in a contrived way, and doesn’t present the full picture in a completely factual manner. Even though the viewers are watching TV attentively, they still don’t learn the truth behind the scenes. In her life as an artist, Liu uses painting as a means of soul searching, as well as a way of scrutinizing and confronting the structure of society.