ARTISTS
Remember This: Hung Liu at Trillium
On, February 5, 2022, the University of Oregon鈥檚 Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon will open the 鈥淩emember This: Hung Liu at Trillium鈥� in the museum鈥檚 Barker and Soreng galleries. In this exhibition, renowned contemporary Chinese-American artist Hung Liu explored subjects ranging from portraits to landscapes to still lifes and reflects upon history, memory, tradition, migration, and social justice.
Characterized by layers of luminous color, drips, and Zen ens艒-like circles that mark the passage of time, Liu focused with insight and compassion on 鈥渢he forgotten鈥� 鈥� elevating and imparting dignity and individuality on the poor, the afflicted, and the displaced; women and children, prostitutes and prisoners. Raised at a time when most photographs were destroyed for political reasons, Liu came to view such images as precious keepsakes, and uses historic photos as inspiration, combining (largely anonymous) figures with evocative backgrounds punctuated with traditional Chinese motifs. Although originally trained as a Socialist Realist artist, filmy washes lend her works a poetic, almost dreamlike quality 鈥� the antithesis of the rigorous propaganda style required during her youth.
鈥淭hese colorful works feature imagery from traditional and modern Chinese history with emphasis on women and children, and reflect themes such as crisis, displacement, and death through a redemptive lens,鈥� says Anne Rose Kitagawa, JSMA Chief Curator of Collections & Asian Art 鈥淭he creativity of Liu鈥檚 mixed-media process, in which she quotes passages from her own paintings and then alters, recombines, and transforms them in successive layers of resin, results in a new kind of shimmering hybrid art.鈥�
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On, February 5, 2022, the University of Oregon鈥檚 Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon will open the 鈥淩emember This: Hung Liu at Trillium鈥� in the museum鈥檚 Barker and Soreng galleries. In this exhibition, renowned contemporary Chinese-American artist Hung Liu explored subjects ranging from portraits to landscapes to still lifes and reflects upon history, memory, tradition, migration, and social justice.
Characterized by layers of luminous color, drips, and Zen ens艒-like circles that mark the passage of time, Liu focused with insight and compassion on 鈥渢he forgotten鈥� 鈥� elevating and imparting dignity and individuality on the poor, the afflicted, and the displaced; women and children, prostitutes and prisoners. Raised at a time when most photographs were destroyed for political reasons, Liu came to view such images as precious keepsakes, and uses historic photos as inspiration, combining (largely anonymous) figures with evocative backgrounds punctuated with traditional Chinese motifs. Although originally trained as a Socialist Realist artist, filmy washes lend her works a poetic, almost dreamlike quality 鈥� the antithesis of the rigorous propaganda style required during her youth.
鈥淭hese colorful works feature imagery from traditional and modern Chinese history with emphasis on women and children, and reflect themes such as crisis, displacement, and death through a redemptive lens,鈥� says Anne Rose Kitagawa, JSMA Chief Curator of Collections & Asian Art 鈥淭he creativity of Liu鈥檚 mixed-media process, in which she quotes passages from her own paintings and then alters, recombines, and transforms them in successive layers of resin, results in a new kind of shimmering hybrid art.鈥�
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