Existential, Being 存在之态

Liu Shuishi is known for his ability to transform a space. A Chinese native, he doesn’t speak any English, but his paintings and installation work transcends language, and he is able to communicate in a very deep way through art. The environment is sensory and harmonious; you can smell the rich oil paint from the canvases, the light is warm and dim, a painted cabinet with mirrors invites you to look in on yourself.

In Existential, Being, Liu Shuishi invites viewers to participate in a meditation on moments of human reckoning. The exhibition brings together eleven new paintings and a central installation work titled Art of the Covenant, marking Shuishi’s first solo exhibition in New York since 2020.

Rather than centering on the drama of an “existential crisis,” Existential, Being considers the existential as a sustained condition: a state of ongoing becoming. Shuishi’s figures do not resolve themselves. Instead, they ask viewers to sit with uncertainty and recognize life as something continuously forming, reshaping, and unfolding.

Many of the works take their titles from gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Following a profound, life-altering event, Shuishi turned to these ancient figures for reflection and guidance. Celebrated in epic poetry for their heroic feats, supernatural power, and deeply human flaws, these mythological characters offered a way for the ancient Greeks to make sense of the world and to understand human nature. These gods and goddesses were known for their flaws and their contradictions—strength and vulnerability, fate and free will—echo the enduring tensions of human existence and the values that shaped early philosophical thought.

At the heart of the exhibition, Art of the Covenant draws on the biblical reference of the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred chest said to have held the ten commandments. The installation consists of a mirrored box, with a monumental painting above that depicts a figure looking down over the box. Here, Shuishi reimagines art itself as a vessel—one capable of bridging revelation and creation, the metaphysical and the human. The installation functions as both anchor and threshold, grounding the exhibition’s philosophical inquiry while opening it outward.

Shuishi’s practice is deeply engaged with questions of consciousness and being, often refracted through the lens of Western philosophy. His paintings are marked by confident, gestural brushwork and a romantic, emotionally charged palette. Abstraction and figuration coexist in a careful tension: abstraction becomes a means of philosophical inquiry, while figuration anchors the work in lived experience. Together, they transform abstract thought into visceral encounters with the fundamental question of what it means to exist.