02 Apr The Lost Realm — Liu Hui Chung’s First Solo Exhibition

” What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer a fantastic; there is only the real.”

— André Breton, Founder of Surrealism 

From a psychoanalytic perspective, fantasy arises from the repressed desires of the unconscious, often manifesting through images rooted in memory and daily life. Surrealists sought to break free from the constraints of reason, allowing the unconscious to flow unrestrained, reaching the blurred boundary between reality and illusion. In this vision, dreams and reality are not opposites but reflections of the same current, flowing along the two banks of a single river. 

Liu Hui-Chung, an artist who seamlessly weaves literature, poetry, nursery rhymes, and music into her paintings, creates ethereal worlds with her delicate and fluid brushwork. Through techniques of displacement and layering, she constructs dreamlike realms where illusion and reality intertwine, and narratives unfold endlessly. Whether in Lost Realm, Jungle, or Brave New World, her compositions are arranged as both independent and interconnected pieces, offering viewers multiple narrative possibilities—an invitation to explore and lose themselves in her visual labyrinth. 

Liu has received numerous accolades, including the Union Fine Arts New Talent Award and recognition at the National Grand Oil Painting Exhibition. She was also recommended by the Ministry of Culture as an emerging artist at the Taipei International Art Fair, with her works permanently collected by the China Medical University Art Museum. Her paintings, marked by a mature and distinctive style, are often infused with lush greenery, blooming petals, and symbols of renewal, evoking an idyllic world of untainted beauty. 

Yet Liu’s surrealist influences go beyond personal dreamscapes. In Lost Realm, she uses a visual language that transcends the ordinary to question the boundaries between consciousness and reality. Through anthropomorphized puppets, she subtly critiques the objectification of daily life, reflecting on how, within capitalism and consumer culture, we might reclaim our inner freedom of perception. Her paintings are not merely stories; they offer a way of seeing the world anew. 

Guided by allegory, Liu’s works shape time and space into landscapes of illusion, exposing the rawest truths within virtual consciousness. While her paintings radiate warmth, vibrant hues, and fairytale-like charm, they also embrace contradiction and absurdity, balancing the eerie with the enchanting. This underlying tension—stretched between structure, narrative shifts, and the fluid passage of time—oscillates between taut and tender, like a melody drifting between reality and dreams. In her visual storytelling, Liu reveals to us the reality of fantasy and the fantasy within reality—landscapes we have all imagined in our minds, now preserved in shape and color by her hand. 

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The Lost Realm — Liu Hui Chung’s First Solo Exhibition
Period｜2025.04.19-2025.06.07
Opening reception｜025.04.19 15:00
Venue｜1F., No. 222, Shidong Rd., Shilin Dist., Taipei