3 Contemporary | 8/1-8/31 | Chicago, IL

Killing Me Softly

33 Contemporary hosts a new series of work by figurative painter Junyi Liu.

For the month of August, 33 Contemporary Gallery, located on the fourth floor of the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, will feature the new, emotionally driven series by Junyi Liu titled Killing Me Softly. The artist presents a unique look at what it’s like to exist in a toxic relationship, a theme that hits close to home for Liu, as it does for many others. In approximately 14 oil paintings, Liu projects her own image into scenes involving candy and food, and each piece is paired with a title that reflects words often stated in toxic relationships.That’s Not What I Said, oil on linen, 24 x 18"

“All my paintings, past and present, are a reflection of my own life and what’s going on in my head,” Liu explains. “For this series, I was trying to find a unique and interesting way to talk about the topic of toxic relationships. I’m very into romanticizing painful things—trauma and my own mental illness. But I didn’t want it to be dark or depressing. I’m not into disturbing my audience and letting them feel uncomfortable. I wanted to create something beautiful and welcoming, so that people are drawn into the details of the work.”

Liu has explored painful subject matter in the past, but she also likes to also incorporate food to deliver the deeper message. In this series, she uses candy and sugary snack foods like gummy bears, cupcakes, waffles and candy to illuminate her metaphors. In the show piece Can’t You Just be Happy, there is a “strong connection between sweets and toxic relationships,” she says. “You can become addicted to sugar and it can harm you, but quitting turns out to be really hard. We fight the urge, and often just end up reaching back to it again.”Can’t You Just Be Happy, oil on linen, 16 x 24"

In this piece, we see a pretty girl wearing a nice dress—all in shades of blue. In her mouth is a tic-tac candy but it also resembles a pill. “On the outside it looks like a harmless piece of candy,” says Liu, “but displaying it in this way, it’s obvious that it’s not just about the candy and it [sparks] a lot of questions: Is it an anti-depressant? Maybe a party drug—a pill that may make you happy but isn’t good for you.”

In Stop Being So Dramatic, we see an alternative view in shades of peachy pink, where a female figure has many pieces of candy or drugs in her right hand and a cup of liquid in her left. “The amount of candy is unusual,” Liu notes. “It seems like an overdose, or maybe she started with one pill and then two, and then more and more, and now she needs a lot at once. It brings us back to the objective quality of sugar and a toxic relationship.”

The theme continues in That’s Not What I Said, showing a female figure sitting before a plate of waffles and stacks of Oreo cookies, contemplating biting into a syrup-soaked waffle. The title references the “gaslighting” effect that a toxic person can have. “A person may put this, [a waffle], in front of you and you’re going to take it,” Liu says. “But then they will tell you they did nothing wrong at all and they may say something like, ‘That’s not what I said.’ The figure in the painting looks like she’s not very active and doesn’t have the energy to fight back, push everything on the table away or just walk away.” Stop Being So Dramatic, oil on linen, 16 x 20"This series is very personal to Liu, but she believes a great deal of people will find it relatable. From beginning to end, the show is a reflection of not only her personal struggles but her hard work in finding the best path to express her powerful themes. —