Liao Chi-Chun was born Fengyuan, a small yet prosperous town in central Taiwan, in 1902 while Taiwan was into the 7th year of the Japanese colonial rule. As a child, Liao attended Huluton Primary School and the Taiwan Governor General Primary School. In 1924, he enrolled at the Tokyo Arts School (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko), where he had the first-hand experience of artistic freedom. In 1928, his painting The Banana Tree in the Courtyard was selected for the Imperial Arts Exhibition. After he returned to Taiwan, Liao Chi-Chun took up teaching and stayed teaching for life. He has taught fine arts at Chang Jung Senior High School in Tainan, the Taichung Teachers College (now National Taichung University of Education) and National Taiwan Normal University. Many of his students later became priminent artists in their own right. Liao was also an active member in Taiwan's art communities, having co-founded the Red Island Society, Taiyang Fine Arts Association and Taiyang Fine Arts Exhibition. Liao Chi-Chun was an oil painting specialist dedicating his artistic life to the exploration of abstract art. He was widely regarded as a great pioneer of the new Taiwanese fine arts.

Instead of highlighting the vibrant colors of the flowers or meticulously documenting the details of the objects, this painting, Still Life, shows competently controlled color harmony in a lucid and well-balanced composition. The objects are well placed in the painting to give a clean, stylish and purposeful look. The white color effectively holds together all the disparate elements of the painting in an elegant fashion and further gives the painting a settling yet poetic feeling.

Modern art began to develop in Taiwan in the late 1950s and Liao Chi-Chun played a vital role in its promotion and dissemination. In June 1962, Liao took a study trip to the USA at the invitation of the US House of Representatives. With the help of the host, Liao was able to visit many art museums around the country – an experience which proved to be pivotal to his development as an artist. In the early years of his artistic career, Liao's art was most strongly influenced by the Japanese Impressionism, where his later works show great influence from French Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Abstractism and American Abstract-Expressionism. Liao's semi-abstract paintings from the later period also demonstrate great maturity and freedom in the artist's brushstrokes.