The Armory Show 2026: Booth P27

Yiwei Gallery presents a solo presentation by Liu Tianlian (b. 1987), transforming the booth into a reimagined New York laundromat populated by paintings from the artist's ongoing Laundry Room series. Liu reinterprets "gongbi (⼯笔画)", the traditional Chinese technique of meticulous brush painting, through a contemporary lens. Working primarily on silk with traditional Chinese pigments, she brings the precision and delicacy of this centuries-old practice into dialogue with the visual language and social realities of contemporary urban life.

Since immigrating to the United States in 2023, Liu has become increasingly drawn to everyday spaces shaped by immigrant communities, including laundromats, nail salons, street vendors, and small neighborhood businesses. In her paintings, these familiar environments shift between observation and imagination, becoming dreamlike spaces through which she explores migration, cultural identity, memory, and belonging.

For The Armory Show, the gallery will recreate elements of a New York laundromat, extending the painted scenes into the physical space of the booth. The presentation brings Liu's imagined world into three dimensions, creating an immersive environment in which the laundromat becomes both an ordinary urban setting and a site of cultural encounter. Through the juxtaposition of traditional Chinese painting techniques and the vernacular landscape of contemporary New York, Liu reflects on how identities and traditions are carried, adapted, and reconstructed across places.