About the artist

YuLiang Liu, more widely known as YUYU, is a contemporary visual artist based in Berlin, Germany. Liu’s multidisciplinary practice spans photography, digital manipulation, generative AI, and immersive installations, with a focus on exploring marginalised narratives of queer and othered bodies in the context of traditional art history. By appropriating and reinterpreting historical motifs, YUYU critically examines colonial and postcolonial dynamics, challenging entrenched social norms and Western cultural values.

About the artwork

YuYu’s latest artwork, Mayhem (2025), revives the artist’s digital collage practice, merging re-composed, appropriated classical paintings and self-portraiture. Drawing from two 19th-century works—The Birth of Venus (1888) and Ahasuerus at the End of the World (1888) by Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl—Mayhem unfolds as a turbulent composition rich with layered meanings and interpretations.

At its centre, the artist’s nude body replaces the Roman goddess Venus, reclining on the sea’s surface. Subtly, yet piercingly, the figure gazes directly at the viewer, seemingly unbothered by the surrounding chaos. It lingers quietly as a reminder that even amidst mayhem, purity and innocence will always rise above.