Wow: The Drips Got Me

A couple years ago I toured Trillium Graphics, a graphics printer just outside of SF, and was introduced by David (see the video below) to the beautiful yet haunting art of Hung Liu.

I was seconds away from purchasing a gorgeous piece of of her work but the price tag caused me to pause. I regret that decision to this day because I know her work would have brought me far more pleasure over the last few years than the cost of the painting.

Oh well, c'est la vie.

Born in China in the 1940s, Liu came of age during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. As a young woman, Liu was sent to labor in a remote village and learn a distorted account of Chinese history as part of her "reeducation." Four years later, she trained as an artist in Beijing, where she was taught to paint in the Social Realist style so that she would be able to serve the state by making colossal mural paintings of Mao and other prominent members of the Communist Party...

...The photorealism of the works is tempered by Liu's technique of diluting her paint with linseed oil, which then is dripped onto the surface, blurring and distorting the portrait. The painting becomes akin to a memory image, which cannot claim to be objective, but fades and changes over time.

Below is a video from a Spark program on KQED of Hung Liu working on one of her paintings.

If you land at SFO International Terminal you can see a very large painting of Liu's, I think it's at gate #5. Enjoy...