Liu Shi-Fen

Liu Shi-Fen, Abdominal Language 365 Days & Sophist’s Tongue, 1999

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Liu Shi-Fen works full-time as a nurse in the Gynaecology unit of Veteran’s General Hospital, Taipei. Many artists work as architects or academics: medical practitioners are less common.

When one sees her artworks, however, the synergy between Liu’s two worlds is immediately apparent. On a formal level, their precise execution and display are almost clinical. Indeed, the artist has also worked as a medical illustrator. Her detailed knowledge of anatomy, and of the structures of skin and human tissue, is fully exploited in works like Abdominal Language 365 Days & Sophist’s Tongue (1999).

Liu Shi-Fen’s detailed knowledge of anatomy, and of the structures of skin and human tissue, is fully exploited in works like Abdominal Language 365 Days and Sophist’s Tongue. In this installation for TRACE, Liu used her drawing skills to recreate the familiar apparatus of the operating theatre. In the process, however, she transformed the space into a museum in which nothing was quite what it seems. Many of her drawings retained gynaecological references, but they also suggested animal and imaginary forms.

On a row of stainless steel tables in the installation space Liu placed assemblages vaguely reminiscent of body parts: the remains, perhaps, of a pathology demonstration or autopsy. These sculptures were made from a variety of materials, including medical forceps, male human bones, razors, condoms, fish-hooks, pincers (to arrest bleeding) and fine thread for suturing. While they suggested corporeal forms – and some were distinctly sexual in their formation – the sculptures were sufficiently ambiguous to defy any attempt at identification.

If anything, their monstrous nature and clinical arrangement deflected any erotic response. Francis Bacon spoke of the aesthetic dimension of wounds and diseased mouths, but here the sensuality of the materials was countered by the taxonomical ordering of the parts.

Liu Shi-Fen at Liverpool Biennial 1999

Abdominal Language 365 Days & Sophist’s Tongue, 1999
Mixed media installations 
Courtesy of artist