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Mission Girls
Protestant missionaries flooded China during the nineteenth century and established several new schools to educate Chinese youth who were living in poverty. Hung Liu, who has long advocated for children, was perusing a book by W. A. P. Martin entitled The Awakening of China (1907), when a photograph of orphaned "mission girls" caught her eye. The subjects were identified as students at the Girl's School of the American Episcopal Mission in Wuchang (the old district of modern Wuhan). The range of their expressions moved Liu to respond with this series of portraits.
The idiosyncratic drips, layered textures, and specific brushstrokes in Mission Girls underscore the individuality of each real-life subject. The circles, Liu says, are "light and airy . . . and full of hope." For her, the round marks -- usually painted in a single stroke -- signify wholeness and transience. The art writer Jeff Kelley, Liu's husband, views them as "riding on the surface of her paintings, reminding us of tattoos or thought bubbles."
Oil on canvas, 2002–3
Castellano-Wood Family Collection |