Existing comment:
Cotton Picker
The source for this painting is Dorothea Lange's 1936 photograph Young Cotton Picker, San Joaquin Valley. During Lange's Farm Security Administration detail on the West Coast, she received several assignments to cover the conditions of migratory farmworkers in the fields of California. Many of these workers, including the young woman pictured here, were of Mexican descent.
Today, when discussions revolving around border crossing are prevalent, Hung Liu's paintings based on Lange's Mexican migrant workers carry renewed meaning. Liu notes that she feels deeply connected with Lange's subjects, as if they are people she might encounter in present-day California. "They are all my relatives. We don't need a language, but we can communicate across time and space. There is something beyond that links us."
Oil on canvas, 2015
Collection of Sig Anderman |