At the core of Liu Fujie’s practice lies the ambiguity of spatial experience. Her work begins with the uncertainty surrounding the identity of place and the meaning of form: is a stretch of geological terrain an unnamed substance, or a landscape endowed with meaning? The transformational relationship between geology and visual landscape is itself an extension of that ambiguity.

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The exhibition pushes this inquiry onto a larger scale: behind the construction of geology into landscape often lies humanity’s pursuit of the sublime, the distant, and order. The community in which the exhibition is situated serves as a microcosm of this discussion: the natural coastline reshaped by human construction and planning into a landscape carrying spiritual projections. This pursuit is simultaneously reflexive: the instinct for self-examination continually drives people to reform both the landscape and themselves, each shaping the other in turn.

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This inquiry is also related to the artist’s personal experience. Having grown up in Hebei, Liu Fujie found that Beidaihe—though close at hand—remained visually indistinct and emotionally suspended. Using the thread of the ocean to reconstruct the relationship between geology and landscape, she “imagined the sea from where no sea could be seen.”

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This exhibition is organized by Assistant Curator Gao Liangjiao at the Aranya Art Center.

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Special thanks to CLC Gallery Venture.

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