Existing comment:
Refugee: Woman and Children
When Hung Liu came across the photograph that inspired this painting, she instinctively saw a desperate refugee mother who was trying to sell her infants. In translating the original image to this composition, Liu added a crane, a lotus blossom, Buddha figures, and other "blessings" as a way to guide the family to safety.
With the portrait's large scale and the artist's signature linseed-oil drips and washes, Liu aims to grant her subjects power. "I hope to wash my subjects of their otherness and reveal them as dignified, even mythic figures on the grander scale of history painting," she says. Speaking of the refugees she has portrayed, she adds that even though they may be "poor or homeless," they still have "a very rich heritage."
Oil on canvas, 2000
Collection of Joan Mann |