Kai Liu

---

Bio

Kai Liu is a Chinese-Canadian artist whose work focuses on themes of nature, landscapes, diaspora and migration through painting, printmaking and mixed media. He was born and trained in China before moving to Canada, where he worked as a graphic designer at Mohawk College in Ontario. Eventually, Kai settled in Vancouver, where he studied printmaking at Langara College. He holds both a BFA and an MFA from ECU.

Websites:

• liu-kai.com/

---

Research Interests

Kai Liu’s research interests cover multiple areas: the material processes in painting and printmaking that influence perceptual and spatial experiences, challenging ideas of reality, nature, identity and place; strategies involving void, rhythm, and spatial ambiguity—partly inspired by traditional Chinese aesthetics—to explore fragmentation, deconstruction and transformation; using visual composition as a space for philosophical inquiry, grounded in concepts such as embodiment, phenomenology, and the metaphysical aspects of visual perception; expressing migration and cultural displacement through abstract material languages; emphasizing technical approaches from impressionism, expressionism and abstraction as artistic lineages; and employing traditional printmaking techniques such as intaglio, relief and Chinese woodblock printing to investigate materiality and process. Through these pathways, Kai investigates studio-based methods as tools for gaining personal, social and philosophical insights within contemporary visual art.