-- Written by Nataline Colonnello
A wooden leg, a headless young woman wrapped in plastic, a smoking vagrant -- disturbing and ethereal, Liang Xiu's images embody life on the fringe of Chinese society. Born in 1995 in a remote village in Shandong Province, Liang started photographing in May 2016, quickly honing her existential approach to imagemaking. Capturing life around her home, her photos speak in the language of a place far removed from the gentrified megalopolis. The subjects–often the artist herself–either avoid meeting the eyes of the spectator or look straight into them with a coquettish lack of shame. By leveraging the observer’s voyeuristic eye with simultaneously crude yet finely wrought images, Liang puts them in direct contact with a reality rejected by the traditional socio-cultural system in China, raising thorny questions about economic disparity, the role of women, and sexual orientation.
