Chinese history has predominated Hung Liu’s work throughout her career. Born and raised in Beijing during Mao’s Great Leap Forward and trained in the Social Realist tradition, Liu’s paintings are now transformed into a new and vibrant series of tapestries.
Liu describes her works by saying, “I hope to wash the subject of its exotic ‘otherness’ and reveal it as a dignified, even mythic figure.” Liu’s tapestries reveal the beauty and heroism in the labors of an anonymous women from China’s past. Drawing inspiration from history, old photographs and her own experiences, this series of exquisitely produced tapestries join Hung Liu with artist tapestries of Picasso, Kandinsky, Warhol and more recently Chuck Close, Craigie Horsefield and William Kentridge in exploring this medium as a contemporary art form.
