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WELCOME TO THE MILK FACTORY

Gallery CA is proud to present Welcome to the Milk Factory, a group exhibition curated by Maggie Wei, featuring works by Pixy Liao, Corinne May Botz, SinYu Deng, Sarah Leiva and Ariana Leon. The exhibition will be on view from April 4 to May 2, 2025, with an opening reception on April 4 at 6:00 PM. Through diverse artistic perspectives, the exhibition delves into themes of fertility, motherhood, and the societal value of women's labor, while critically examining the objectification of the female body in contemporary society.

The participating artists, spanning different generations and cultural backgrounds, explore gender conflicts through the lenses of the body, spirit, and identity. Through video, sculpture, and photography, they investigate the relationships between women and everyday objects, which carry traces of human life and reflect patriarchal frameworks. Industrialization has reshaped these objects, reinforcing the factory-like expectations placed on motherhood and femininity.

At the heart of the exhibition is the symbolism of breastfeeding, which serves as a dual metaphor: an act of nurturing and the foundational sustenance of human life. Through the artists’ unique perspectives, Welcome to the Milk Factory invites audiences to step into intimate narratives of motherhood, prompting a reevaluation of women’s roles in the contemporary world.

Artists

SinYu Deng b. 2000

SinYu is a new media artist and editorial photographer. She specializes in interdisciplinary performance, audiovisual design, and interactive installation design. Her photography has garnered international acclaim, such as being selected for the IPA Official Selection and receiving the Muse Photography Awards Gold Winner. She holds a Master’s in Media Arts from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art and Technology from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

Ariana Leon b. 1997

Ariana Leon is a Canadian artist whose work subverts conventional narratives to create feminist installations which embody the multi-faceted reality of the femme identity. She is currently an MFA candidate at Rinehart School of Sculpture MICA and holds a BFA in Photography and Video from the School of Visual Arts. She has participated in several group shows in North America and her work can be found in private collections in Canada and the United States.

Pixy Liao b.1979

Pixy Liao, originally from Shanghai, China, is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is mostly known for her photo series Experimental Relationship, which depicts her with her younger Japanese partner, Moro—and challenges gender norms in regards to media and sexual expression. She has exhibited her work internationally at venues such as Fotografiska, Rencontres d’Arles, the Asia Society, and the National Gallery of Australia. Liao has received numerous awards, including the NYFA Fellowship in Photography, the Santo Foundation Individual Artist Award, and the Madame Figaro Women Photographers Award. Liao received an MFA in photography from the University of Memphis.

Corinne May Botz b.1975

Corinne Botz is a visual artist and educator based in New York whose practice encompasses photography, writing, and filmmaking. A sustained focus on space, gender, and the body, particularly relating to women’s experiences, is central to her practice. Her published books combining photography and writing include The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (Monacelli Press, 2004) and Haunted Houses (Random House/Monacelli Press, 2010). Botz’s photographs have been internationally exhibited at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois; Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany; De Appel, Amsterdam; and Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK. Botz earned her BFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art and her MFA from Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College. She is on the faculty of International Center of Photography and John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY).

Sarah Leiva (b. 2001)

Sarah Leiva is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Miami, FL. Her practice is driven by impulse, a way to understand the labor of the past so that she may learn how to move through the present. Most of her process is sculpture-based and performance-informed, blending these mediums to form narrative structures that speak towards desire and discomfort. Scale, malleability, and weight form points of contact and tension between objects, bodies, and histories. Modularity has recently become a prevailing aspect within her work, applying the sensation of kinetic energy to these art objects, likening them to bodily movements and changes. She has been included in exhibitions across the United States, including Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, and New York.

About the Curator

Maggie Wei is a Taiwanese curator, designer, and artist based in Baltimore, MD and Taiwan, Taichung. She graduated from the Creative Product Design program at National Taichung University of Science and Technology and is currently pursuing an MFA in Curatorial Practice at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). She is committed to feminism and the representation of women in conceptual art forms. As an Asian woman in the 21st century, she believes in the importance of embodying the ideals of female independence and exploring gender relations in the contemporary art world. She emphasizes inclusivity and diversity in her work as she believes that gender should not be antagonistic. In addition to her role as an artist and curator, she also seamlessly integrates her role as a designer into her curatorial projects. Her academic research revolves around feminist conceptual art and immersive exhibition space design.