One midnight, a very hard and hot summer, Shutao Liao was born in a small city of south west China, the three years’ drought weather brought unthinkable disasters on people, afterwards, the coming of The Cultural Revolution. The hot summer forged his passion in his later life. The early hardship of life gave him a very strong deep feeling and character. The Cultural Revolution was, actually, a very supernatural movement, which influenced him with a doubtful idea about human society, but beyond all those, the memories of the love from his parents, and the early life of his family at that special period of history, forged his passion, art dreams as well as courage to go anywhere in the world to explore his life as an artist.
It was unusual for his age, always carrying a dreaming picture of the world in his mind, and began to draw pictures from children’s ancient story books with his elder brother at the age of five. Beside the drawings, he did lots of colored paper cuttings from all kinds of books he could find, from the images of Chinese folk stories to the first Chinese king, and of course, a lot of images of Chairman Mao. When he grew older, became more serious about drawing, always practiced until the deep night under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, mostly, by himself, sometimes with friends.
In 1981, he went to Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts to study painting, feeling deeply disappointed by the restrained, dull method of the teaching system. His enthusiasm for art went down quickly. He preferred to create art by himself than to go to class. Wildly, he would like to go around the city of Chongqing for visiting scholars, artists, critics and poets, as well as fellow student friends who had similar dreams to discuss the new ideas of art night by night. At the same period of time, he began to study and write poems with an extremely strong passion, which lasted many years. Many of his poems were published in different literature magazines in China later. He taught art in a professional school for five years after finishing college. Eager to make a change, he went to Fine Arts College, Southwest Normal University to study master degree, specializing in oil painting technique under the reverend professor Yichen Liu and professor Dingqiang Zhong. Their contrasted teaching styles gave him an idea how the same reality could be approached in different ways by each individual understanding and perception. In 1991, he finished a personally, very important art thesis: On the Phenomenon of Vincent Van Gogh, the Eastern and the Western Culture, formed his fundamental view and approach to art.
He found himself teaching art at The Art Institute, Jimei University for six years after his Master Degree study, during that period, he did a lot of imaginative realistic paintings with a very strong personal feeling approach. He won The Gold Award of the Art Festival of Fujian, China for his painting in 1994, In the year of 1998, he was invited by The University of Ulster, Faculty of Art & Design, UK, as a visiting academic for one year. Greatly succeeded, he had several exhibitions, a lot of collectors loved his art, and his art was reviewed by the British newspaper: Newtownards Chronicle, Jan. 28, 1999. At the same period, he gave a lecture: A Cultural Journey to Chinese Art at Queens College of Belfast, UK.
Leaving the success behind, he made a decision to move to New York City, USA, which greatly affected his life and his art. As a newcomer of New York, he was struggling for his art as well as for his life, very hard from the very beginning, which he never had experienced before. The New York art scene and its culture changed him forever to a new direction in his art. After some struggling time, he looked inward for inspiration, to his belief, a great art has to reach the deepest self as a fundamental human being. For about three years, he did a series of spontaneous all black & white paintings which he used raw canvas with ink, acrylic and oil together: First, he tried meditation to clear mind, after that he used charcoal to find some unexpected shapes without consideration; then, he would put the canvas on anything like a chair, a fan etc. to make it uneven to change dynamics, and poured the pigment or ink on it to flow over all directions, waiting for it was dry; finally, he would trace the shapes had done before working out images unthinkable. He called the process: working with God and cooperating with nature, and he strongly believed that shapes were a major power in creating life, beside their function of expression. All of the painting series were in a private collection from Pennsylvania soon after them finished.
From the year of 2008, feeling a strong inner call, he indulged himself into the history, philosophy, mythology of the people all over the world: a comparative cultural study. The things that intrigued him most were the different lives and thoughts of different people interpreting the same nature of reality, from stories, rituals, especially, signs and symbols. Thoroughly inspired by the study, he reached a highlighted point in creating his unique art and special interpretation toward the world that was based on the fundamental understanding of humanity, which manifested in his paintings: Totem series and Legend of Night series, and also the works beyond. He realized that to gain the true essence experience of life, art has to pass over knowledge to reach the instinctive irrational power of creativity, fascination and imagination, embracing the freedom of making. With this understanding, his art is an overview, destruction and reconstruction of human consciousness through symbolic depiction, which also, is a test to the possibilities of imagination and consciousness compared with reality, not only the openness, but also the happening inside the brain. In a blink of bare consciousness, imagination controls the power to go wherever. He thinks an artwork should always be like a question, a code, an enigma, a living mystery which never can or should be fully understood, each time, each person who observes it should have a new feeling, a new understanding and a new discovery, its life is stretching for the generations to come, to quest and confront the mystery, a mystery from other side parallels the mystery of human itself.
He received Raffaello Sanzio Master Award, Nelson Mandela Human Value Award and Shakespeare Award in 2014, is an Honorary Master Member of Italian Cultural Association 2014, Honorary Master Member of Academy of Visual Art “Italia In Arte Nel Mondo” Cultural Association 2016, was honored with the Ambassador of Culture in the World. He is a world acclaimed artist, poet, independent thinker and humanist pioneer of the 21st century. His recent study was focused on the decay of humanity, has authored works including Original Hometown, Mirage, Stories of Roars, Meditation at the Foot of the Himalayas, and his art collection SHUTAO LIAO - ART in the 21st Century and some others.
He has been considered the “father of Instinctive Art,” widely known for his unique style, often described as “Instinctive Art”, Neo Art Informel,” or “Psych-Symbolism”, which focuses on exploring inner truth, human experiences, the subconscious, and the decay of humanity, explores themes of the spiritual world, self-salvation, psychological dramas, and the emotional complexities of human life. His "Instinctive Art" emphasizes on the irrational ways to the fusion of consciousness, subconscious, and unconsciousness in creation, which can be defined as Neo Art Informel for that he has given Art Informel school a fresh revolutionary touch that deepens the sense to the aspect of Art Informel in this Toy-Culture era, having a special humanistic significance at this moment to the culturally broken world. He has found beauty in the truth of the tormented human flesh.
