Tishan Hsu Is Working with AI for Paintings That Envision Human Bodies as ‘Liquid Soup’ – ARTnews

31 December 2025

Tishan Hsu saw the future coming as early as the 1980s, when he began producing abstract paintings with sculptural additions that looked variously like warping screens and torqued body parts. Beyond the body horror seen in David Cronenberg’s films, there wasn’t much out there that looked like Hsu’s paintings of the era. But now, with digital technology having become so fully integrated into daily life, Hsu’s paintings—both the ones produced when he started and the ones he is making now—seem oddly familiar.

Perhaps this is why Hsu, 74, has only recently gained a large following. In 2020, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles staged his first-ever museum survey, paving the way for his Venice Biennale debut two years later. At that Biennale, Hsu memorably showed such works as a table-like structure complete with purple silicone face poking through it. Hsu was one of the older living participants in that Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani, whose exhibition also featured a range of younger artist envisioning new possibilities for the body.

Yet Hsu has not rested on his laurels, because if anything, his work has only gotten weirder. In his first show with Lisson Gallery (through January 24), whose roster he recently joined, Hsu is showing paintings on wood boards that were made with a new tool in his arsenal: AI, whose ability to churn out surrealistic imagery the artist has embraced with aplomb. In this New York show, there are paintings in which skin merges with stomata, as well as a video in which organs flow together with blades of grass. There’s also a gigantic print featuring a spread of unforgettable images, including one in which hole burrows deep into a chest.

Read the full article by Alex Greenberger for ARTnews here.

Image: Portrait of Tishan Hsu © 2025 North First Studio / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York