Existing comment:
Gender
Hung Liu describes her mode of feminism as a strength that she inherited from generations of Chinese women -- especially members of her own family. In addition to Liu's mother, grandmother, and aunts, the artist credits her grandfather with encouraging her to defy traditional gender roles. The two of them often read The Ballad of Mulan, the epic poem about a young woman who disguises herself as a man so she can replace her father in battle. Liu notes that for her, this is "the type of woman that I pay homage to, or you could say the type I've always hoped I could become."
Liu's portrayals of empresses, women soldiers, mothers, refugees, migrants, prostitutes, and 1930s "Modern Girls," made over the course of her career, reveal the fortitude of women while commenting on the development of gender dynamics in China.
The art historian Lucy R. Lippard (born 1937) observes that "much of [Liu's] work focuses on the redemption of marginalized women through what might be called the body politic." For Liu, portraiture provides a means to empower those who were unable to assert themselves during their lifetime. Using her signature style of "weeping realism," her large-scale, layered paintings present women as active participants who command the viewer's attention and "return the gaze." |