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In her third solo show at The Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, we are pleased to welcome back Hung Liu debuting the most comprehensive survey of her newest series of work which was produced in collaboration with Trillium Press. Occupying both gallery spaces, the Za Zhong paintings are a composite of printed images, collage and painting, layered in-between many coats of resin. The resin freezes the three dimensions and enhances its colors to provide a translucent glow.

Known for paintings drawn largely from Chinese historical photography, Liu’s works focus on what she calls the “mythic poses” that underlay the photographic surfaces of history. Her imagery representing such elemental human activities as laboring, eating, journeying, leaping, fighting, dreaming and carrying one’s burden, these “mythic poses” come from particular Chinese circumstances, but see epic, trans-historical, and allegorical in the new works. With an overlay of traditional Chinese birds, flowers, insects, dragons and stylized human form, Liu offers her subjects artistic evidence of their own rich heritage – as if to remind or comfort them.

Liu was born in Changchun, China in 1948, growing up under the Maoist regime. She emigrated to the US in 1984 to attend the University of California, San Diego, where she received her MFA. She currently lives in Oakland and is a tenured professor in the art department at Mills College.

These works will be on view at the Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art located at 2020 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, Missouri. March 2 – April 28, 2007. Works by the artists represented by the gallery can be visited via the internet at www.artnet.com/cohen.html.