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Butterfly Dreams: Working 7/20, 2011

Six-color lithograph with gold leaf

44.25 x 30.5 in.

FMV: $9000

Chinese-born American artist Hung Liu (Born in Changchun, China, 1948 - 2021) portrayed individuals who risked being forgotten in death as in life. As a child, Liu lived under the regime of Mao Zedong, who led the Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1976), a turbulent period of political and social upheaval in the People's Republic of China. It was during this time that Liu realized photography's significance when she witnessed her mother burn cherished family photographs, or otherwise risk persecution for being "bourgeois," or not working class.

As an adult, Liu immigrated to the United States, where she focused on the photographs of the Chinese people who came before her. By manipulating and recontextualizing found images by dripping, splattering, and layering materials, Liu blurred the lines between representation and abstraction and probed photography's role in shaping collective memory.