HUNG LIU

Sisters, 2000

Lithograph with chine collé on paper

Collection Mills College Art Museum, Gift of the Artist, 2011.13

Born and raised in China, Hung Liu arrived in the United States in 1984 to pursue an MFA at the University of California, San Diego. She is Professor Emeritus of painting at Mills College and based in Oakland. The San Francisco Bay Area has a long, complicated, and vibrant history of many diverse Asian communities including the U.S.’s oldest Chinatown. In her work, Liu captures a variety of issues and themes that relate to the Chinese and Chinese-American working-class experiences.

Sisters depicts a familial and personal experience between two sisters. This image also shows Liu’s interest in 20th-century photography and the connections or disruptions photography creates in relation to personal memory, history, and relationships. Adapting figures from historical Chinese photographs, Liu’s work confronts issues of culture, identity, and personal and national history.

Janin Escobedo-Garcia