Artist Biography
Hung Liu grew up in China and came of age during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She spent four years in the countryside as a laborer, studied painting at the Central Academy of Art, and, in 1984, received permission to attend the University of California/San Diego where she earned an MFA. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Art at Mills College in Oakland, California.
Liu often uses anonymous historical photographs as the subject matter of her prints and paintings. But in her suite, Official Portraits, she presents three self-portraits, each denoting an important period of her life. Proletarian shows a young Hung Liu at the time of the Cultural Revolution, working in the countryside. Immigrant is based on a photograph taken at the time of her immigration to the United States. Citizen brings us up to the present day with a portrait showing Liu as a confident and mature woman of the world. She embellishes the images with lovely drawings of plants, flowers, birds, rats (her Chinese zodiac sign), and painterly drips. Collaged on each print are representations of the ID cards, permits, and ration coupons that have documented her “official” status associated with these portraits.
Selected Collections: University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tuscon, AZ; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; City University of New York, New York, NY; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX;
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Prints by the Artist
