Rise

Lisa Tang Liu

Interview by L. Valena
September 5, 2025

First, can you describe what we sent to you?

I remember seeing three figures. The palette was the thing that struck me the most. It’s so warm and happy. The three figures are facing the same direction. It’s like this “we’re moving forward” kind of feel. Very hopeful, optimistic. And the texture is just – I really loved it. I was like, “This is so great.” So I wanted to capture that feeling of hopefulness.

What were your next moves?

So I think a lot of it was a stream of consciousness. On the back burner, I had this picture in my mind of this dead bird that I found. I love cat birds. I found it in front of my daughter’s gymnastics club one day a couple of years ago. I had wanted to do something with it. Initially I had wanted to make a cyanotype out of it. I actually made the cyanotype and I was thinking about it and I was like, “Hmmm the orange would be very interesting on top of that because it’s kind of complimentary.” But it didn’t work out.

I also wanted to get into printmaking, and I just love your project so much. I thought it was a really great opportunity to just try something new altogether.

I love hearing that. That’s always the best.

So I decided to just dive into it and I love how you said that it doesn’t have to be your masterpiece or anything. I was like this is a safe space. I can try. So I was thinking of making a phoenix. I’m not that good at drawing. I was trying to make the shape of a bird from the dead bird and a shadow. I just drew something rough and transposed it onto a rubber stamp block. I didn’t use the actual linoleum. And then I decided to just carve it. I used oil paint to paint on top of that and made an impression. I tried on scratch paper first and I was like, I think this would actually look better on black and white. So I decided to make a black and white print out of the dead bird picture. And then I printed the orange on top of that.

Have you ever done anything like that before? I know that in your other work you sometimes combine photography with other media here and there. Have you ever worked with printmaking like this?

Not really. A couple of years ago, I did an online cooperative. Every month, there’s a prompt. The leader would send out a prompt and we would respond to it. I tried using foam. It was craft foam. I did a little bit of relief printing with that, but that was it. So I never actually tried linocut. This is still not an actual linocut, but it’s close enough [laugh]. This is easier actually, because it’s rubber stamp block, so I thought it was pleasant to carve. Linocut linoleum is harder.

I want to hear more about bird imagery. Talk to me about catbirds.

I just started learning about them in the middle of the pandemic. I didn’t know they existed before, that they were local even. They actually migrate and I believe this one was actually migrating back from Mexico. They would go all the way down to Mexico and fly back in the spring. So I actually found this one in the spring.

It was in front of the gymnastics club, which has a lot of glass. So I wonder if it flew into the glass. I don’t know how it died. There were no wounds on it or anything. It could just be old, I don’t know. But it was around the time that they were migrating back. It was just so sad to find it right in front of the gymnasium. I didn’t have a camera on me except for my phone, so I was like, “Just snap it and we’ll do whatever with it later.” The best camera is the one you have on you!

You said you came to discover catbirds during lockdown. Tell me about that.

So my friend who lived a few blocks away from us, her family was moving away during the pandemic. Our last meeting was at her backyard. We visited them for the last time with masks on and everything. We used to hang out a lot. We’re home schoolers, so we home schooled together for a while – I am not religious, but my friend is. Even though she is Christian and is religious, she’s not conservative. She was moving back to Indiana and it was really sad. She was really into birds, too. We heard a catbird. We didn’t see it then, but we heard it and she was like, “Oh! That’s a catbird!” I remember the sound and so I think I have that association. It’s a nice association with the catbird. It’s all very loose, but it was just a stream of consciousness in my mind.

I think catbirds are also very smart. There are these parasitic birds around here called the brown-headed cowbird. They were hanging out in my backyard during the pandemic too. One discovery that I made was that they actually laid their eggs in other birds’ nests and fooled them into thinking that they are their own children. So they would end up raising them. But the catbirds are very smart and they don’t let that happen to them. They know, somehow. They would push the eggs out of their nests.

That’s what I know about the catbird. We had gone to Mexico recently too and I actually saw them there in the winter.

That must have been cool!

Yeah, like, “Oh! There you are.”

Like when you’re in a faraway place and you see someone you know and it’s like the craziest thing ever.

Yes! It was like seeing an old friend, seeing them in Mexico. It was really sad when I saw the catbird dead there and it kind of stuck with me. I really wanted to do something with that, but the print wasn’t enough for me and it’s also very sad. I feel like we don’t need more sadness! I wanted to make it transcend into something and I think this was just the perfect opportunity. When I was thinking of hope, somehow my mind immediately went there.

In your email, you talked about a phoenix rising. That spoke to me of the – it’s almost like you’re reanimating this catbird through this artwork. Does that seem close to what you’re talking about?

That’s exactly it. I wanted to do that. It’s figurative too – all of the drab and terrible politics going on. I’m hoping that we would transcend it and turn into something better as a nation, as a people.

Do you want to talk about how this relates to the rest of your work?

That’s an interesting question. I think I always like having two different things converge. I feel like there’s a duality here of death and life and I find that to be a lot of my work – duality and two very different things converging. Currently I’m contemplating the space between the virtual world and the physical world. I want to vibe into that a little more. That’s why I like mixed media too. That fits with what I do normally.

How was it to respond to a prompt like this? How did it feel to jump off of someone else’s work? I know that collaboration is at the heart of your other practice as well. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

I love it. Not knowing anything about it – not knowing who the artist is and just the visual prompt alone. I love the idea so much and I was all for it. Recently I read a book called The Courage To Be Disliked. I have to think more about the ideas there, but there are some ideas that really resonated for me. The need to seek approval outside of yourself and that somehow you feel that you’re extraordinary or special or that you have to be in a jury show. I’m trying to take a step back from that and I love the feel of this, which is like everyone is on equal footing and we’re just a part of something large. It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re just part of a chain. That’s so beautiful to me. That really resonated with me. I just love it.

What’s next for your work?

I would love to do more printmaking, so I think this is kind of a launching point for me to do it. And I love that. I would like to see how I can also apply printmaking to the theme of what I’m working on – the space between the virtual world and the physical world. I’d like to see how I can use that as a tool to explore that theme.

Do you have any advice for another artist participating in this project for the first time?

Play! And have fun. I had so much fun. It was just so much fun. You gave me a deadline and I was like, “You know? I think I can beat the deadline because I’m just having so much fun!”

Call Number: O132VA | O133VA.liuRi

Lisa Tang Liu is an interdisciplinary visual artist working in photography, collage, and painting. As a naturalized U.S. citizen raised in a working-class immigrant family, she ponders the tension between belonging and alienation, as well as the meaning of being “American”. Her conceptual work examines our interconnectedness with each other and all living things. Lisa is currently exploring the space between the physical and virtual layers of our lives.