On the bottom-right of "Fishpond", Liaosigned his name and the time he made thepainting, May 1962. According to Liao'schronology, he was planning to go to the United States. In that year, he and Shiy De-jinn were invited by the US Department of State. Usually, a visit would take two months, and after two months, the visitor could decide to stay or to travel to other places. Liao went to the States in June, and stayed there for four months. He then went to Europe in December and came back to Taiwan the following spring. During his travels, he enjoyed the collections in museums and galleries and sketched all kinds of monuments. After he came back to Taiwan, a series of paintings on the topics of Athens, Venice, Spain, Bethlehem, and Paris was created.

Liao tought in National Taiwan Normal University. His students were hugely influenced by his advanced and innovative concepts, and they always searched for revolution in tradition. In 1957, several avant-garde painting societies, such as the Fifth Moon Group and Ton-fan Group, were established. They brought huge impact on paintings in Taiwan. Liao didn't get involved in the struggles between the old and the new but silently supported his students' ideas. In the late 50s, some of Liao's paintings took a new artistic form. Although "Fishpond",painted in 1962, portrays a traditional pond full of carp, the painting itself presents in abstraction. Compared to "Carps", which was painted in 1948, "Fishpond" presents a stylistic change. In "Fishpond", the arrangement of dark green, blue, white, and pink colors implies floating water, and the vivid orange color are carp in the pond. The interlaced dark lines symbolize the movement of the carp. The painting moves between abstraction and realism. The main focus of the painting is actually the combination of colors and lines.

After World War II, abstractionism became popular in the States and thus led the art trend in the world. Yet, at the end of the 50s, it declined and was gradually replaced by other artistic ideas. However, it brought influence in Europe. Liao was not touched by the abstract paintings in New York, but appreciated the works of Marc Rothko and Arshile Gorky.

In 1963, after he came back from Europe, Liao said once, "I think the problem of modern painting is neither abstract nor realistic. The most important thing is if art has content. The style is only a medium of the artist's soul. We need a really good painting, not paintings only belonging to a certain style." Marc Chagall once said that "you go to Paris not to learn how to paint, but to be inspired". Liao showed the same conidence of focusing on his own art.

The simple colours and complex lines gradually become the important elements in Liao's works. Such presentation already appears in his early works. His free style is inspired by Post-impressionism and Fauvism. After his travels in the States and Europe, he learnt the soul of modern paintings. He then turned into himself not for pure abstraction but for a new style of transformation and abstraction. "Fishpond" is one of Liao's best works in abstract painting. The simple style and colours show the difference from the works before.

In his explorations of abstract form, Liao was always daring new challenges and experiments. Some people called him "a magician of colours," which shows the uniqueness of his usage of colours. Different from his previous works, he did not paint "Fishpond" with festive colours such as red, yellow, blue, and green but neutral colours such as blue, grey, green, pink, white and yellow. Liao's paintings always show optimism and innocence and bring a visual pleasure to audiences.