When the Chinese-American artist Hung Liu was asked to describe her creative process, she spoke about airplanes. Specifically, the long flights where she would study historical photographs, absorbing the details and textures of the images that would serve as the basis for her large-scale paintings. The subjects of these photos were often those she described as “spirit-ghosts” — orphans, migrants, refugees, and comfort women, from 19th century China to the American Dust Bowl. Her art honors history’s forgotten.
When she arrived in the U.S. in 1984, already an established artist, she grappled with how to practice art as a Chinese artist in a Western context. She described her migration experience with the phrase, “Five-thousand-year-old culture on my back; late-twentieth-century world in my face.”
In the 90’s, Hung Liu moved to the East Bay. She taught for decades at Mills College. Fittingly, one of her permanent public works is right here at OAK. “Going Away, Coming Home” is a 160-foot-long glass window wall painted with images based on a 12th-century Chinese scroll painting. 80 red-crowned cranes were incorporated into the glass panels, symbols of blessings and safe travel.
The painting, on view in the Terminal 2 concourse, features Liu’s signature "drip" technique, an effect achieved by diluting oil paints with linseed oil. “The washes and drips create a visual veil,” she said. “I just think that's more interesting than the solid, perfectly rendered image…History to me is not a noun, it's a verb. It's still going on."
Hung Liu passed away in 2021 at age 73, weeks before a retrospective of her work was set to open at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. It was the first solo exhibition by an Asian American woman in that venue.
In a 2020 collection of her portraiture, she wrote: “When I moved to the West, exactly half a lifetime ago, I carried my ghosts with me. The ghosts I carry are a burden, but also a blessing.” We celebrate her life and artistic legacy this May, as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
All images © Hung Liu Estate