Jen Liu (1976) is a New York-based artist whose practice spans video, choreographic performance, biomaterials, and painting. Her work investigates themes such as national identity, gendered economies, neoliberal labor structures, and the reanimation of archival materials. She approaches complex social issues with speculative problem-solving, pushing them to their logical—and often surreal— extremes. In doing so, she reveals the illusions of false consciousness and the inadequacy of conventional solutions.
Labor Cloud (2022) explores the experience of entrapment within closed systems. In this series, bodies and objects appear to emerge from cartoon-like holes in fields of iridescent gold and pink, suggesting containment within the paintings themselves. The work arose, in Liu’s words, from “pure air, anxiety, and estrangement”—a response to the two-year COVID period during which she felt unable to produce a single painting. Labor Cloud captures a collective emotional landscape shaped by isolation and disorientation.