Whilst the paintings of Guohe Liao initially appear like sketches – with its crude outlines and scribbles echoing a primitive simplicity – this haphazardness is intentional and controlled. Save the House is packed with a sense of comical vulgarness, obscuring the distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’, elementary and calculated, satirical and poetic.
Two women sit centre-stage, holding their comically large breasts upright; one woman’s mouth is open agape in hectic flurry, attempting to balance a small house on her breasts. The house frowns as it collapses backwards, whilst the other woman tries to catch it with her breasts. To their right, the title of the work is written directly onto the canvas, therefore made integral to the composition, much like Chinese landscapers would incorporate poems in their masterpieces. In a clever wordplay of the Chinese character fang, which refers both to ‘房子’, the house, and ‘乳房’ the breasts, Liao adds another layer of absurdism to the imagery.
The 2000s saw rapid economic development and inflated supply of real estate. Through employing a male gaze, by reducing women’s breasts to the same significance as housing – something to be desired and owned – Liao critiques the superficiality of contemporary society. The women comparing the sizes of their breasts parallel the shallow flaunting of wealth through new glamorous material possessions.
Born in 1977, currently based in Changsha, Liao Guohe graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara with a major in mechanical drawing, then went on to perfect his technical skill at the Hunan Normal University.