about
♓︎
originally from Hawaii, lika xiao first attained her A.A. degree in Hawaii Tokai International College, buildings her Japanese language and cultural skills before pursuing her B.A. degree in Fine arts at Temple University, Japan.
During her Time In University, she has shown interest in multiple mediums of the fine arts which include but are not limited to painting, drawing, and photography. Earlier works were depictions of food or snack illustrations done through linoleum and woodblock printing methods before later shifting more into portrait painting and drawings of herself or other people. xiao mostly works on wood or like word surfaces with mediums such as acrylic or oil paint for her major projects. Aside from major projects, she has also worked on personal and smaller side projects, such as “Dating” year long sketchbook series of young males, and “The Morning After”, a photography series of her life if she were to live everyday with a different man. Although her choice of medium may differ among pieces, xiao’s work all h ave the same, if not similar, underlying theme of innocence being stripped away from the subject.
Even if these dark themes are portrayed in her works, xiao still enjoys spending her free time eating out with loved ones, baking and doing small illustrations of food or even doing photo walks. Although busy, she constantly updates her social media.
In April 2019, xiao hosted her first solo exhibition in Tokyo titled “Head in the Clouds But I’m still Suffocating.”
artist statement
"I think my emotions really are the true roots as to why I reacted my work. I always try to include a lot of myself on a more personal scale to the pieces I create so most of my works have expel as their subjects, if not self portraits.
A lot of my work is at first glance, appealing to look at, which I think because I strive to be such a perfectionist, I really try to create things the way I want them to be captured and through illustrations and paintings, I feel like I can really control the ever at which perfection can be achieved. At the same time though, I push to show people that life is hard to achieve these little goals and the world, even though can be beautiful to look at, is filled with hardships, pain, sorrow, and lots of downhill battles in life. But that doesn’t mean we should look down on them. It’s more like I want my audience to be aware of these hardships that maybe coming to them and by putting people or even myself as the subject of my work and tying my own experiences to these hardships along with the piece, if I’m able to pul at least one heartstring in the audience, it also helps ease me too, Like I’m not alone in facing these problems. I want my pieces to be full of emotion the longer I or someone else views it.
I guess you could say, that even though I strive to be perfect in my work, drawing and even painting is my means of escaping but also healing as I face my own anxiety and problems head strong by slathering them onto a blank surface. Seeing them out of my head and onto the 3D plane causes me to be self aware; know that whatever it is, it exist..but I can get over whatever problem is clouding my head."