“You don’t have to be a boy to be my boyfriend” - Pixy Liao’s Futari (Two Persons) Exhibition & Artist Talk
By Shelby Rodger
Photos by Shelby Rodger of the exhibit
When graduate photo student Pixy Liao first met her now partner Moro at the University of Memphis in 2005, she had no idea the impact he would have on her art and her life. She did not know their chance encounter would eventually lead to her current Futari (Two Persons) exhibition. All she knew was a feeling—one of fascination and intense curiosity.
After thinking about him for over a year, Liao finally ran into him again, approaching him by saying, “I’m a photographer. Do you want to be a model?” Moro agreed, and within a few months a romantic relationship between the two artists blossomed. Moro moved to Memphis from Japan to study jazz, but soon found himself at the centerpiece of Liao’s work.
“I started to rely on him for my photography projects,” Liao said at a virtual artist talk with Light Work on Feb. 15. “Sometimes he was my model, sometimes when I went to shoot in abandoned buildings he was my bodyguard.”
A couple years into their partnership, Liao began questioning it, asking herself, “Is this too much to expect of a boyfriend?” She wondered if it was unhealthy for Moro to be the subject of her photos, or if she was overpowering him. Liao is from China where it is expected for a woman to be with an older, stronger man who can provide wisdom and stability. With Moro five years younger than her and just starting his career as a musician, their relationship was the opposite of her own expectations.
After graduating in 2009, the couple moved to New York where Liao continued the photography project Experimental Relationship she started in 2007 as a student. She took inspiration from her professor who told her to title her photos like a magazine cover: “Top 10 Tips for a Successful Relationship.” It was then she decided to view her relationship for what it is—her and Moro equals in every way as lovers and artistic partners.
“This is how relationships should be… when two people act as one person, like a unit,” she said. She named her current show at Light Work Futari after the Japanese word for “two persons.”
Liao said the exhibition features two sets of photos: some taken during her residency at Light Work in 2015, and others when the couple visited Moro’s hometown in Japan in 2019. Visible in almost every photo is the cable release Liao uses to operate her secondhand camera, which she often gives to Moro as a gesture of power and harmony. The 2015 photos were taken at Liao’s apartment here in Syracuse—a space of intimacy for the couple—while the 2019 photos were taken at Moro’s grandmother’s house before it was torn down due to Japanese earthquake safety laws.
“I feel like we were there just reliving their life,” Liao said. “The house is the same. The couple changed, but it’s still the same.”
In addition to photography, the couple make music together as a band called PIMO—a combination of their two names. Looped on a small TV at the “Futari (Two Persons)” exhibition is a performance filmed during their time in Syracuse seven years ago. In between the beautiful large-scale prints, Moro can be seen on screen lightly strumming an acoustic guitar while harmonizing with Liao’s vocals, the two wearing matching skirts and dress shirts. Liao said one reason she decided to make music with Moro is to pay him back for years of photography collaboration.
“He helped me to make the images that I want to make,” she said. “I should help him make the music he wants to make.”
Pixy Liao’s Futari (Two Persons) exhibition will be in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work until Mar. 10, 2022.