Jiapeng Liu

Sproxton Award for Photography - 2023 winner

Jiapeng Liu is the 2023 winner of the Sproxton Award for Photography.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” presents a fictional love-story in deductive and documentary style, based a real couple’s daily life. The two protagonists in the project exhibit various disharmonious and unnatural behaviours within a harmonious environment, which serves as the point of conflict in the project.

This work aims to express the sharp tension between two lovers still trying to maintain the relationship, while showing various discordant manifestations within the memories left by their past.

Artist statement

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is my first photo album, based on the life stories of real people. I used both deductive and documentary styles in capturing their narratives.

In this project, my primary focus was on portraying the "strangeness" of the two characters through visual language. The goal was to convey the sharp tension between two lovers who are still trying to maintain their relationship, all while revealing the various discordant manifestations within the memories they share from their past.

My visual ethos involves skillfully employing concise and evocative visual language to express my aesthetic pursuits. I find great inspiration in surrealism, drawing from its dreamlike qualities to infuse my work with a sense of wonder.

Similarly, I embrace the elegance of minimalism to create a harmonious visual experience, ensuring that every element has a purpose. These artistic elements, among others, intertwine in my creative process, allowing me to craft intricate narratives that captivate the imagination and evoke powerful emotions.

However, in this project, for the first time, I employed a pseudo-documentary photography style. This more realistic approach brings the lives of the protagonists closer to the viewer, providing a more effective means of storytelling.