September 17 – November 25, 2020

Hung Liu’s career long commitment to reframing and communicating epic human stories continues, in this case focused on American ones: The Great Depression; the Dust Bowl; the Japanese Internment. Through the lens and photographs of Dorothea Lange, Liu traces the toll and transmission of these economic, political, and environmental upheavals.

In Liu’s “ensemble paintings” people and objects are isolated from Lange’s photographs, yielding fresh narratives in the lives, belongings, and shelters of these displaced people. Each new ensemble includes a photographic print of one of Lange’s cloudscapes, adding to the notion of freedom and floating in a tentative space – an analog of the photographic moment.

For artwork inquires, please email jenny@renabranstengallery.com.

Taken during the Great Depression and Dustbowl era, Lange’s photographs aimed to bring a heightened humanity to the droves of individual Americans struggling to survive the economic and agricultural crisis of the time. Liu’s deep kinship with Lange is palpable in the work. While the uncertainty of the present moment feels, at times, utterly lonely, there is solace in communing with the past and in seeing oneself in the broad scope of history. Liu has long held a commitment to this communion. The Sun Also Rises is marked by an underlying current of hope and an enduring belief in the resilience of the human spirit.

Hung Liu Interview

Rena Bransten Gallery

Founded by Rena Bransten in 1974, the Rena Bransten Gallery has defined its artistic program by including both established and emerging artists whose work engages with contemporary social and cultural climates. Originally focusing on ceramic sculpture, the exhibitions soon expanded to include a multidisciplinary program while sustaining a deep-rooted connection to the crafted object. Over forty years later, the gallery continues to exhibit both national and international contemporary artists in solo and thematic exhibitions, maintaining a dialog with other galleries, museums, and curators.

To inquire about work please email info@renabranstengallery.com.

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Hung Liu

Hung Liu was born in Changchun China in 1948. She was affected by repeated hardships of the time – her mother’s experience in Japanese occupied Manchuria, surviving the Cultural Revolution, displacement to the Chinese countryside – before ultimately emigrating to the United States in 1984.

Liu has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and the National Endowment of the Arts Painting Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others. Major museum collections include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Forthcoming solo exhibitions will be held at the National Portrait Gallery, D.C. and the de Young Museum, San Francisco in 2021. Liu currently lives and works in Oakland, California and is a professor emeritus at Mills College.

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