About

Chi-Chun Liao is an oil painter, accomplished architect and fine art enthusiast. Born on June 7, 1953, in Taipei, Taiwan, Liao was raised by an artistic family and immersed in a culture of fine arts and classical music since childhood. His father, Te-Cheng Liao (born 1920), is a renowned oil painter famous for his post-impressionistic landscapes of rural Taiwan, and his mother, Hong-Hsia Chen, was a well-known pianist and teacher.

After graduating from Washington University, in St. Louis, Missouri, with a master’s degree in architecture in1982, Liao applied his artistic talents to architectural design. From 1982 to 1998, Liao worked with global design and planning firm Peckham Guyton Albers & Viets, Inc. and later, with Taiwanese development firm Universal Paragon, developing an eye for bringing artistic elements into functional design.

In the meantime, Liao cultivated his painting skills, under the tutelage of his Tokyo School of Fine Arts-trained father, Te-Cheng. Te-Cheng, strongly influenced by Paul Cézanne, was “the last Taiwanese artist of the previous generation to study painting at Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts before the outbreak of World War II,” according to A Retrospective: Liao Te-Cheng at the Age of Eighty by Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2001. Liao mastered his father’s oil painting techniques, including Te-Cheng area’s of expertise: controlling the white color paint to capture the feeling of air and water, instilling spirit of life into still life.

Over the past 16 years, Liao’s skills have matured into a promising blend of impressionistic techniques and skillful design. Liao makes an effort to incorporate his father’s style into his work, following the school of capturing the natural life force of objects: “Through a long period of observation, [Te-Cheng Liao] has realized the essence of the objects and further adds his feelings to the paintings. He pays much attention to the treatment of light and the change of colors; the reappearance of the natural life-force is the most important expression of his creation,” as stated in Liao Te-Cheng Retrospective by Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1991.

Today, Liao resides in Los Altos, California, U.S.A. with his wife, Anna, and his two daughters, Janet and Angela. He is the president and CEO of Home Buyers Dream Team, a design-build firm specializing in residential home construction and development, where he translates his aesthetic vision into designs for his clients in the beautiful Bay Area. Liao continues to compose oil paintings, which inspires his architectural craft and provides a drawing board of his visions of bringing out the beauty of everyday life and objects.