Where am I and where I should go
oil on canvas
24x30cm
2024

Do you hear the whale crying?
oil on canvas
100x120cm
2025

Heart of Forest/ 盤古之心
oil on canvas
100x100cm
2025

Two Tigers/ 兩隻老虎
oil on canvas
100x60cm
2025

memento mori
oil on wood panel
70x50cm
2024

The story untold
acrylic, GEL MEDIUM, oil on panel
10x20cm
2025

Han-Chen Liu

Han-Chen Liu is a Taiwanese artist currently based in Glasgow, UK. Her work explores the intricate relationship between humans and animals, drawing inspiration from mythology, storytelling, and dreams. Through painting, she aims to reconstruct forgotten or untold stories, allowing the narratives of animals to be recognised.

Liu’s practice combines oil painting and traditional Chinese ink painting, creating a unique visual language that bridges Eastern and Western artistic traditions. Her work often features ghostly animal forms, blurring the distinction between presence and absence, existence and myth. By intertwining historical references with contemporary concerns, she invites viewers to reflect on the evolving roles of animals in human culture and our collective memory.

My work explores the relationship between humans and animals, seeking to establish connections between stories, mythology, and contemporary art. In many cultures, animals are not only companions to humans but also symbols, protagonists of allegories, and figures of legend. I am deeply fascinated by these narratives and question whether we can reconstruct and create new stories, bringing forgotten or untold tales into the light. Through my art, I strive to find a poetic balance between reality and fantasy.
In terms of technique, I primarily work with oil painting while incorporating traditional Chinese ink painting to develop a distinctive visual language. This fusion enables my work to convey the aesthetic essence of Eastern traditions while incorporating the vibrant colours and spatial qualities of contemporary painting. I experiment with rendering animals in a ghostly way, allowing their forms to shift between figuration and abstraction, blurring the boundaries between the real and the imagined.
It has deepened my understanding of the possibilities within art and has guided the direction of my future creations. By reinterpreting animal imagery, I aim to evoke awareness of ecology, culture, and history, offering a more complete representation of these beings that once existed—or may have existed. Through painting, I aim to revive them in our collective imagination, allowing their stories to continue unfolding.