Yijun Liao, better known as Pixy Liao, is a Shanghai-born artist currently based in Tokyo who, through her photographic series, explores extreme possibilities for representing reality. Extreme, as in overturning male–female roles within the traditional heterosexual couple. Coming from a particularly conservative culture like China’s—shaped by a mindset that borders on machismo—what could be more extreme and subversive than portraying herself in an openly dominant position over her partner, who is also younger than she is?

The woman becomes the maker and creative director of her own artistic project—as a mother, protector, and even an educator: in short, as the dominant partner. All of this is encapsulated in one of her most important photographic series, Experimental Relationship, a project the artist has been working on since 2007 and that continues to expand with new images, blending photography, performance, ready-made sculpture, and video. The aim is to find a new balance, moving beyond biases and preconceptions, to explore new representations of the heterosexual couple.

“Having grown up in China, I thought I could only love someone older and more mature than me—someone who could be my protector and mentor. Then I met my current boyfriend, Moro. Since he is five years younger than me, I felt that the whole concept of a relationship had changed.” This is how Pixy Liao describes the beginning of a relationship in which she took on more authority and power.

The power she speaks of is always respectful toward her partner: a form of protection—at times maternal—rather than an imposition or a means of control, an approach that prompts the viewer to reflect on contemporary relationship dynamics.

Even the choice of clothing underscores the artist’s dominance, with the red dress set against her partner’s nudity. The same happens in her reinterpretation of Antonio Canova’s Love and Psyche (2019), or in the shot The Man Hiding in My Dress (2021), where the reference to the moment of birth is particularly strong. Through this artistic and life project, Pixy Liao aims to disrupt a pre-existing balance in order to propose new visions, free from preconceptions.

This article was produced in collaboration with Luigi Falanga and Gaia Forlin, aka @super8otto.