Kai-Ping Liu
Taiwanese Artist and Industrial Designer
Bamboo Painting (Blue) and Bamboo Strip 01, images courtesy Kai-Ping Liu
“My academic background is in industrial design, and later I began experimenting with art. For me, there is a semi-transparent line between design and art.”
“Before starting a project, I usually decide whether its primary direction is design or art. In product design, functionality is certainly a major consideration. Yet, very often during the design process - especially in stages like material and process testing - I discover many interesting outcomes. These outcomes, which cannot always be transformed into functional products, become a material-expression database that I draw on for my artistic works, to be presented later in suitable projects with my concepts. I think that the creative fusion of design and art is intriguing.”
“‘Lightness’ is a quality I appreciate. In my past works, I did not deliberately strive for it, but my work such as “Bamboo Strips,” “Layers of Bamboo,” and “The Loop of Hydrology Series” naturally embody it. They all use bamboo strips material and intentionally preserve a sense of open, empty space.”
Kai-Ping Liu
Designing with the perspectives of industrial design, craft, art and architecture, and reinventing traditions, Kai-Ping Liu’s award-winning work focusses on materials and social phenomena. After graduating from the Design Institute of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, he completed an exchange programme at the Politecnico di Milano, and has collaborated with the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan. In 2021 his residency at Nantou Bamboo Art Museum led to the “Hyper Bamboo” exhibition, and more recently his “The Loop of Hydrology” series has been exhibited in Taiwan. In 2022 he was awarded Best of MOM (Maison & Objet and More) in Paris. He also lectures at the University.
Bamboo Paintings
(Bamboo Strip sculptures below)
“Bamboo dyeing is a traditional technique. Because it is done by hand, there are many variables I can control. I chose to focus on “time”, allowing the colours to form natural gradients. I would describe it as a co-creation with bamboo fibre. Through many experiments, I discovered that the fibres of bamboo are fine and unique, almost like fingerprints. I watched as the dye slowly travelled along the fibres, colouring the vascular bundles in random patterns. At that moment, I realised that the process was not created by me alone. And the bamboo fibres themselves played an essential role. Later, in my bamboo painting series, I intentionally gave up 100% control of where the colours would appear, leaving space for the natural randomness of bamboo fibres. I love this process of learning from the material, conversing with it, and interacting until we reach the final result together.”
“When the dye stops flowing through the fibers, they leave behind a sense of ‘frozen stillness.’”
“Some works are single images, while others are multi-panel compositions, in which I take a more abstract approach to express my chosen themes.”
“The bamboo paintings have continued for over three years, resulting in various series: a blue series inspired by Hakka cultural heritage, blue and green works reflecting mountains and oceans, vibrant yellow and pink works created during my residency at the Nantou Bamboo Craft Museum to disrupt the traditional craft context, and assembled blue series inspired by Kaohsiung’s port landscape.”
Bamboo Strip 01 and 02
“The starting point of this work was my desire to challenge the bending limits of bamboo strips. During the bending process, I experimented with different thicknesses and eventually chose a thin dimension. The combination of bamboo’s natural materiality, its thinness, the curved spatial forms it created, and the shadows cast by the work all conveyed a sense of lightness. The works not only used the flexibility of bent bamboo strips, but also incorporated heat-bending techniques. This method allows for a variety of curved forms and is a common practice in bamboo and woodcraft.”
