A THOUSAND LAYERS AND
THOUS AND MORE
YULIANG LIU (YUYU) SOLO
EXHIBITION

Time as a concept has always fascinated me. As it flows, traces of it are imprinted into our souls in the form of memories. Stamps of specified moments and emotions layered upon each other. The layers of memory are built on the neurobiological process of encoding, storing, and retrieving, where each recall of a memory re-encodes it, layering new interpretations over old experiences. A little over a year ago (August 2023), I embarked on a journey of exploring the fluidity of time by appropriating William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s
painting Les Oreades. Inspired by studies in cognitive psychology that show how memory is not a static archive but a dynamic process of reconstruction, I approached the painting as a linear visualisation of time. Forty self-portraits would function as timestamps of life moments—moments that include humane feelings such as happiness, success, anxiety, self- fulfillment, or pain for the loss of loved ones.

 

In A Thousand Layers and A Thousand More I explore the intricate relationship between time, memory, and the layers of personal and collective history that define our experience of the world. This exhibition, consisting of a large-scale installation and a collection of 15 animated derivative artworks, navigates the complexities of how we perceive, remember, and reconstruct our lives as time passes and life leaves us wounded and wiser.

The Passage of Time: Memory, Fogginess, and Layers