Behind the Image is an ongoing MODELS.com series taking a more personal look at both established and emerging creative talent.
Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
Theo Liu, Photographer
Hometown: “Oumuamua”
Based In: Paris, France
Representation: MA + Group
You came from a background in professional gaming and classical painting before moving into photography. What prompted that shift?
Gaming, painting, and photography were like awakenings: the same thing arriving in different forms. There’s a saying from an older manuscript tradition of the Tao Te Ching: 大器免成 — “The greatest vessel needs no completion.” I believe that. I did not choose photography. I had a dream, picked up a camera, and something shifted, a so-called life-changing click, at least in retrospect. Photography fulfills me. Through the lens, I see the world, and somehow, at the same time, I see myself.
How does your background in art and gaming shape the way you build an image?
Gaming plays an operational Yin to the creative Yang of my painting experience. Gaming rewired me. What’s more resilient than someone who has died a thousand times and kept going? Every failure became a signal, every loss a recalibration. That’s neuroplasticity in action. It built something foundational underneath: execution, logic, spatial awareness, team rhythm, crisis management, and time pressure. All running at once, all under control. What gets built underneath is not technique, but will. That’s what I bring to every shoot. Painting taught me to decide in an instant, to trust intuition. Before anything happens, I already know where the image lives. In the time it takes to press a button, the entire frame is painted. When I studied murals, where your work sat ten feet above someone’s head, you learned quickly how to command a gaze. There was no room for doubt. Printmaking, meanwhile, feels like the ancestor of black-and-white photography, a discipline rooted in letting go: what stays, what disappears. Every mark is a commitment. That precision carried directly into the way I shoot.
There’s a distinctly dreamlike quality to your images, as if they exist slightly outside of reality. How would you describe your work, and what’s your trademark?
A voyant. A lucid dreamer. An Akashic reader.
What non-fashion influences shape your creative perspective?
The things that move me most are not aesthetic, but sensory. Gastronomy in all its forms. A sound sleep, ice cream, and making things with my hands. I’m equally drawn to the invisible: theology, feng shui, esotericism, meditation. Then there are the senses themselves, animation for the eye, experimental music for the ear. And finally, movement and connection: constant travel, not for sightseeing, but in search of origins.
With the growing presence of AI in image-making, where do you see its role within your own work?
It is a tool, and my feminine alter ego. I use it to amplify and to randomize. Instinct takes me somewhere. AI takes me elsewhere. The gap between them is where things get interesting.
Do you ever imagine full stories behind your images, or do you prefer to let the viewer create their own interpretations?
Most of my work comes from pure instinct. I don’t want to kill anyone’s fantasy.
What do you love most about what you do?
The career opens up a gateway to the beauty in itself. I feel blessed and want to cherish every moment of my life.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced professionally, and how have they shaped your growth?
Hindsight makes mountains into hills. Nothing in this industry comes close to dying a thousand times and getting back up. There’s always a bigger monster ahead.
What have you watched, heard, or read lately that has inspired you?
Loop Hero. A game about a warrior trapped in a loop, rebuilding the world from memory. To live means to die before.
Who’s one to watch?
All the talents from the MA+ Group.
Selected Work
Irina Shayk by Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
Formula 1 for Vogue Italia
It was such a joy to shoot with Irina (Shayk) that day. We clicked like long-lost sisters.
Devon Aoki by Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
Devon Aoki for Vogue US & Italy
It was a two-day shoot for Vogue in Tokyo. Everyone was exhausted, but the urge to create still remains. This photo with Devon (Aoki) appears like a siren, but everyone was impressed by the impact of it.
Amelia Gray by Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
A Pop Quiz With Takashi Murakami for Dazed Magazine
We were lucky enough to shoot in Center Pompidou before its complete closure for a five-year renovation.
Caroline Trentini by Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
Balmain F/W 24 Campaign
It’s one of my most iconic images ever.
Anok Yai by Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
Anok Yai for Vogue Japan
In this picture, there is Anok (Yai) and a team of LOVOT, an adorable companion robot designed not to work but simply to be loved. They have been my favorite little companions lately, pure emotional support. They bring such joy, and since they don’t speak our language, there’s nothing to hold back.
By Theo Liu | Image courtesy of MA + Group
The 01 for Vogue Japan
This image reveals a prototype that exists alone in a cold, empty world. The two figures are me, which are left open for whatever the audience wants to see. Together, it reflects the creator’s current state: version 0.1.
