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HUNG LIU
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Modern Times, 2005, oil on canvas, lacquered wood, antique revolutionary clocks, 66 x 168 x 5 inches
   
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Relic 9, oil on canvas, 66 x 66 inches, 2004		 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Relic 10, oil on canvas and lacquered wood, 66 x 66 inches, 2005
 

Hung Liu's first solo exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery opens on May 21 through June 28, 2005. The show, entitled "Nu Zi Pang (Female Radical)," includes two series of the artist's work: "Relic" and "Visage." Both series in the artist's inaugural exhibition honor women and comment on their "place" in pre-revolutionary China. As courtesans and prostitutes they are elevated in the artist's hands, isolated in a field of paint, accompanied by emblems and images from classic Chinese paintings.

 
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Relic 11, oil on canvas and lacquered wood, 66 x 66 inches, 2005		 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Relic 12, oil on canvas and lacquered wood, 66 x 66 inches, 2005
 
Hung Liu was born in Changchun, China in 1948. She grew up in Beijing during the time of Mao Tse-tung. After finishing high school in 1968 she was sent to the countryside for four years during the Cultural Revolution where she worked with peasants in rice, wheat, and cornfields seven days a week. During this time she photographed local farmers with their families and also made drawings of them.
 
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Relic 8, oil on canvas and lacquered wood, 66 x 66 inches, 2004		 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Relic 2, oil on canvas and wood, 66 x 66 inches, 2004
   
In 1972 Liu entered the Revolutionary Entertainment Department of Beijing's Teachers College to study art and education. After graduating in 1975 she began teaching art at an elite Beijing school, Jing Shan, and also began to teach a program for children on television, "How to Draw and Paint," which lasted several years and was widely renowned. In 1979 she attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts where she majored in mural painting. In 1980 she applied to the visual arts program at the University of California, San Diego. After being accepted, it took Hung Liu four years to obtain a passport from the Chinese government. She arrived in California in late 1984.
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Visage I, oil on canvas, 51 x 48 inches, 2004		 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Visage II, oil on canvas, 51 x 48 inches, 2004
   
   
In 1990 she returned to China for the first time since immigrating to the United States. There she discovered a trove of turn-of-the century photos of young Chinese prostitutes, which became the source material for both her "Relic" and "Visage" paintings.

The exhibition title, "Female Radical" refers to the fact that each of the "Relic" paintings is punctuated with a red, resin-glazed panel upon which the artist has painted a Chinese character in black. In each painting the central panel is composed of the calligraphic radical for "female" as well as a second, more descriptive ideogram that renders each character unique: English approximations would include "slave," "to curry favor," "charming," and "Eve" (the legend of Nu Wa).

The panels are of equal size (8 x 8 inches), and project from the painting a half-inch. Frozen in time as if under a protective glass, their mirror-like surfaces contrast with the thick impastos and lyrically veiled washes of the oil paintings; the field in which the courtesans either stand or recline.
 
 
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Visage III, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2004

Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Visage IV, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2004
 
While the centerpiece of the painting contrasts with its surface, it relates to and is symbolic of the subject of the painting. Red is the color of celebration in China, used for such occasions as weddings and the New Year. Hung Liu's paintings are a fusion of both ancient and contemporary styles. Only in contemporary times could the artist combine imagery of courtesans derived from 19th and early 20th century photography with selected images of classic Chinese paintings such as birds, flowers, grasshoppers-all in a style dissolving in oil washes and drips.

The circle, the purest of forms, is a signature for Liu. The artist uses it as a musician would use a leitmotif in a composi-tion, punctuating the surface of the painting with a range of color. The circle or pi is an ancient Chinese symbol of the universe.
   
 
 
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Souvenir, oil on canvas and wood, 48 x 64 x 9 inches, 1990		 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Visage V, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2005
 
In "Relic 9" a beautiful courtesan reclines in a flowered pink dress, seeming to float in washes of paint accompanied by a bird, flowers, circles, as she stretches from one end of the canvas to the other. This is the Chinese version of Eve. Legend tells that the sky was falling and this goddess had to fix it or the end of the world would soon come. In order to do so, she had to melt rocks and fix the sky and thus became a heroine and legend, the legend of Nu Wa.
 
 
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Lacquer Box with Procession, mixed media, 12 x 12 inches, 2004
 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Lacquer Box with Hawk, mixed media, 12 x 12 inches, 2004
 
In her "Visage" paintings, Hung Liu magnifies faces of young courtesans to a scale of 6x6 feet, partially obscuring them with traditional Chinese painting motifs of blossoms. These are not the blossoms one sees in ancient Chinese paintings. Liu decomposes the branches and scatters parts of them throughout the painting. Her interest is in simultaneously revealing and concealing the visage, in layering and fragmenting it. Her larger than life faces invite and beguile, as the eyes gaze into eternity.
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005
 Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005


Hung Liu was born in Changchuan, China in 1948. She received a B.F.A. in Education from Beijing Teachers College, China and an M.F.A. in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego; she did graduate work in mural painting at the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China.

Hung Liu's work has been shown at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, California; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana; Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; Santa Clara University, California; Monterey Museum of Art, California; Oakland Museum of California; Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; San Jose Museum of Art, California; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005 		Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005
Hung Liu's work is included in the collections of Boise Art Museum, Idaho; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York; City of San Jose, California; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, California; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California;, California; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; Oakland Museum of California; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; San Jose Museum of Art, California; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She was awarded a commission from the Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California.
Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005 		Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005
   
Hung Liu has twice received Painting Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts; Capp Street Project Stipend, California College of Arts & Crafts, San Francisco; Eureka Fellowship in Painting, The Fleishhacher Foundation, San Francisco, California; The Joan Mitchell Foundation, Painters Sculptors Grant, New York; Russell Foundation Grant, University of California, San Diego. She has won the San Francisco Women's Center Humanities Award, California; Contemporary Art by Women of Color Artists' Award, Guadalupe Cultural Center, San Antonio, Texas and Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) Award, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California. She has also received grants and scholarships from University of California, San Diego and Mills College, Oakland, California. Hung Liu
Hung Liu, Seven Poses, seven digital prints, 14 x 14 inches each, 2005
   
   
  Hung Liu Seven Poses
   
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