Exhibition Title: Seasons Without Soil
Artist: Chia Hsiu Liu
Venue: Heather Grey Gallery (18 W North Ave, Baltimore, MD）
Exhibition Dates: June 20, 2026 – July 20, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 20, 2026, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Closing Reception: Thursday, July 16, 2026, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Thursday 1pm-5pm
Friday 1pm-5pm
Saturday 12pm-5pm
Seasons Without Soil marks Chia-Hsiu Liu’s debut solo exhibition in Heather Grey Gallery, presenting a curated trajectory of her newest practice from Fall 2025, the year she graduated from her MFA, to her most recent explorations.
Central to this body of work is Liu’s deep response to the Mid-Atlantic’s vibrant, rhythmic seasonal changes, a stark contrast to the Humid Subtropical climate of her home, Taiwan. Seasonal changes have become the most noticeable phenomenon for Liu as a foreigner since she arrived in Baltimore. The fracture of the four seasons emphasizes Liu’s homesickness and enhances the discomfort of the fast-paced reality. Silhouettes of the shifting leaves across the four seasons, the unfamiliar cold of a snowy winter, and the East Coast urban palette serve not only as observations but also as mirrors of the foreign artist’s estrangement. The excitement of exploring her artistic career after graduation and the nerves about her future direction intertwined, leaving a void.
Liu identifies with the flora that stretches across the city’s concrete edges, which are resilient yet solitary, rooted in the landscape as they wait for the next season of change. Through an expanded exploration of the urban landscape, Liu decodes the complex interplay between “rootlessness” and “attraction.” Her paintings function as personal reflections on the cyclical nature of solitude and the quiet strength required to grow in a place far from home. Color and forms occupied most of the representation in Seasons Without Soil. By collecting pictures and paying attention to the city’s shapes of color, Liu is able to interpret her feeling of suspension through the interaction of a crashing palette as she lays and adjusts it, allowing her inner sense of thought to speak through
the canvas. The heaviness and yet relatively luminous hues and tones work together to reflect a distinctly sensibility, felt and realized through Liu’s body.
After three years in Baltimore, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, Liu came to realize that there is no one with a solid root; you grow like a plant, find a crack, flow with the wind, and blossom each season.
Seasons Without Soil invites viewers to witness a research-based visual journey into the identity of the displaced artist, seeking meaning in the transient beauty of a city in constant flux.