I am an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, painting, images, words, and performance.
Informed by a life lived across ruptures, my work uses material tension to create spaces of danger and fragility, carrying the chill of what has been lived and lost in personal and sociopolitical memory. I approach unspeakable experience through myths of loss and return. Pain becomes the connective tissue between histories, materials, worlds, and narrators, each catching glimpses of the others through translucency and opacity. Art becomes a surgical effort to dissect and suture, mirroring the cycles of destruction and renewal in personal and historical trauma. I work as a culture mechanic, mending the ruptures between past and present, East and West; I ask if healing, in all senses of the word, is even transiently possible.
I have exhibited internationally, received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a Young Ambassador Award, and been reviewed in depth by the Smithsonian Institution (archived in the Smithsonian Libraries), FAD Magazine, and China Daily, with features in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and CNN. I served as a juror for the 2025 Individual Artist Fellowships at the Delaware Division of the Arts, the state's arts funding branch.
Education
2023–2025 MA Fine Art, Sculpture Pathway, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, UK
2017–2021 BA Highest Honors, Studio Art & French Literature, Smith College, USA
2019–2020 Exchange Student, Sorbonne University, France
Professional Appointment & Jury Service
2025 Guest Juror, Individual Artist Fellowships Program, Delaware Division of the Arts, Delaware Department of State, USA
Selected Exhibitions & Performances
2025 What Will Not Bend, Will Break, Vision Art Platform, London, UK
2025 Artistic Time Travel with Lucy XC Liu, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland
2024 Women’s Health, École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) Paris Alumni House, Beijing, China
2024 A.I.R. Exhibition, Kleinert James Center, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, New York, USA
2024 There Is Something New Under the Sun, Tank Magazine Reading Room, London, UK
2023 An Equivocal Contrast, Performance & Lecture, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2021 The Dream that Flocks South, Solo Exhibition & Performance, Acentric Space, Shanghai, China
2021 Of the Grassland with No Boundaries Which No Fire Can Burn Down, Solo Exhibition, Jannotta Gallery, USA
2020 The Connected World, Los Angeles Center of Photography, Los Angeles, USA
2019 What I Thought I Saw, Commission, Smith College, MA, USA
2019 Boat, Public Immersive Sculpture, Jannotta Gallery, MA, USA
2019 Chania International Photography Festival, The Grand Arsenal, Crete, Greece
2019 Perceptions, Month of Photography Rome, Millepiani Gallery, Rome, Italy
Selected Reviews & Media
2025 “Tenderness Edged with Danger: Lucy XC Liu’s Veilings,” FAD Magazine, London, UK
2025 What Will Not Bend, Will Break, Vision Art Platform — recommended by Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, CNN
2024 “Bridging Gaps and Stirring Dreams: Lucy XC Liu’s Integration of Traditional and Contemporary Art,” James Deutsch, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Libraries & Archives, Washington, DC, USA
2023 “Xiaochuan Liu Facilitates Cultural Exchange through Inheritance and Innovation,” Ning Yang & Jiani Zhang, People’s Daily, China
2023 “Poetry Rides New Wave—Searching for Authenticity,” Qian Gui, China Daily, China
2021 “From Home: An Interview with Lucy Xiaochuan Liu,” Sophie Poux, SCMA, USA
Awards & Grants
Art Awards:
2025 Almacantar Award, London, UK
2024 Young Ambassador for Global Arts & Culture Innovation, Edinburgh City Chambers, Scotland
2023 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, residency at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, New York, USA
2020 Bronze Winner, Book Prize, Prix de la Photographie Paris (PX3), Paris, France
2020 Columbia Journal Special Issue Art Prize, Columbia University, New York, USA
2019 & 2021 The Tryon Prize for Art, SCMA, MA, USA
2019 & 2021 The Megan Hart Jones Studio Art Prize, USA
Writing Awards:
2021 The Ethel Olin Corbin Prize for Writing, USA
2020 The Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize, USA
2019 First Place, Jubilat Journal Manuscript Contest, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
2019 Massachusetts Five College Poetry Festival Prize, USA
2019 The Ruth Forbes Eliot Prize for Poetry, USA
Selected Publications & Readings
2021 Visual Poems, “Unnamed Poem in Mourning” and “The Other Side,” Stillpoint Mag, USA
2020 Poems, “The Beyond Black” and “The Carrying,” Columbia Journal, Columbia University, USA
2019 Essay, “In the Days of Peony Flowers: A Contemporary Reflection on Chinese Kunqu Opera,” Folklife Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
2019 Poetry Collection, The Rye of Pondering, Jubilat, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
2019 Featured Poet, Arts Night at the Emily Dickinson Museum, MA, USA
Conversations with Major Artists
2021 Interview, “Presenting in an Incomparable Way: James Welling’s Photographs of Choreography and Sculpture,” Chinese Photographers Magazine, CNKI Database, China
2021 Interview, “Focus on Stephen Shore’s New Works: Town and Country & Instagram,” Photo World Magazine, Xinhua News Agency, China; spotlighted in 303 Gallery press archive, New York, USA
2021 Interview, “Viviane Sassen: Through Loss to Longing,” Photo World, China
2020 Interview, “Gohar Dashti: The Desert Between Us,” Photo World, China
2020 Interview, “Gregory Crewdson: An Artful Producer of Dreams,” Photo World, China
2020 Review, “Focus on Nan Goldin’s First Solo Exhibition in China,” Photo World, China