“Of course my work has political dimensions, but my focus is really the human faces, the human struggle, the epic journey,” Hung Liu, artist

BIO:

I am a painter and photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. In September 2018, I began the extensive photographic portrait series, Pandora’s BoxX Project. For the past six years, I have devoted my focus and energy to creating and generating this project, which is ongoing. Due to the age of some of the participants and the urgency provoked by the interruption of the pandemic months, time is of the essence to get to completion.

 I have received a 2024 Local Arts Support grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to photograph Brooklyn-based womxn creators and visionaries for Pandora’s BoxX Project. I received a 2023 New York State Council on the Arts award to photograph New York State-based womxn creators and visionaries for Pandora’s BoxX Project. In 2022, I received a Puffin Foundation grant, the Barbara Deming ‘Money for Women’ Memorial Fund grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fiscal Sponsorship, all for my work with Pandora’s BoxX Project. Additionally, I was nominated in 2023 for the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, and was a finalist for the Harpo Foundation Award. I will exhibit select portraits from Pandora’s BoxX Project for the first time in 2025, at the Carney Gallery, Regis College, Weston, MA.

I have organized and taken part in public Pandora’s BoxX Project panel discussions between multi-generational womxn from the project that serve to raise awareness for the project’s intent and its participants. A 2024 panel, “Pandora’s BoxX Project: A Panel Discussion on the Dubious Constructs of Age-Womxn-Art”, with artists Nicole Awai, Cheryl Donegan, Carla Gannis, Maria Elena Gonzalez and Claudia Hart was hosted by Artists Talk On Art, an online organization devoted to live artist discussions.

A 2023 panel I organized, “Pandora’s BoxX Project: A Panel Discussion” was hosted by the Main Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn NY in collaboration with Cora Fisher, a curator of visual arts programming at the library. This panel included Brooklyn-based artists Deborah Kass, Helen Evans Ramsaran, Aya Rodriguez-Izumi, Emily Mae Smith and was moderated by art dealer Ivy N. Jones, founder of Welancora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Another 2023 panel, “Pandora’s BoxX Project: A|L x Pandora Pittsburgh Womxn” was organized with and hosted by the Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA in collaboration with Alma|Lewis, a Pittsburgh, PA gallery and residency space devoted to black artists. This panel included Pittsburgh-based artists Jo-Anne Bates, Fran Flaherty, Diane Samuels, curator and founder of Alma|Lewis, Kilolo Luckett and moderated by Helen Trompeteler, Deputy Director of Programs at Silver Eye. A third panel, “Pandora’s BoxX Project: A Panel Discussion” in 2023 which I moderated, was hosted by ‘Artists Talk On Art’ and included artists Vinnie Bagwell, Babs Reingold, Moko Fukuyama and Cydney Williams. The project’s first panel discussion, in 2019, “The Pandora’s BoxX Project, An Introduction”, was hosted by Zürcher Gallery in New York, NY and included artists Regina Bogat, Dorothea Rockburne, Frances Barth, Kyle Staver, Lisa Corinne Davis and Alexis Myre with myself moderating.

I gave a solo talk in 2023 on the Pandora’s BoxX Project at the first annual West Chelsea Arts Festival, organized by curator and artist Katie Cercone. I was interviewed about the project for online magazines Art Frankly in 2022, Nectar News, and Tip & Tell, both in 2020. During the 2020 pandemic lockdown, I organized, hosted and moderated one on one online discussions, “Zoom Duets”, between multi-generational Pandora’s BoxX Project participants that included artists Dottie Attie and Emily Mae Smith; curators Cora Fisher and Kilolo Luckett; artists Dorothea Rockburne and Cydney Williams; and art consultant Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz with artist and art dealer, Paola Oxoa.

Naked Bike, my 2017 photographic project documenting womxn motorcyclists, was exhibited at MotorGrrl, a womxn owned motorcycle shop in Brooklyn, NY. This installation championed womxn-owned small businesses and brought together a broad and diverse audience comprised of bikers, local community members and art world insiders. The show was well received and garnered positive press across motorcycle, art, and general media. Select articles featuring Naked Bike were included in Art Critical Magazine, Whitehot Magazine, Modern Moto Magazine, Woman Rider Magazine and Jalopnick Magazine

My paintings and photographs have been featured in solo exhibitions in 2014 at Mar Silver Design Lab in Westport, CT, as well as with Anita Friedman Fine Arts, New York, NY in 2007, 2001, 1997 and 1991 and with Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA in 1996 and 1993. Is The Room, a book featuring my photography with poems by Rosetta Ballew was published in 2013 by Jaded Ibis Press. My paintings and photographs are in private collections across the U.S. and Europe including the Vescom collection in The Netherlands and artist Lynda Benglis, Santa Fe, NM. My artwork has been featured in notable press and publications including the New York Times, Artnet Magazine, Fine Art Magazine, Village Voice and Art Matters.

In addition to solo exhibitions, I have been in numerous group shows. Notable among them was “Eminent Domain” curated by Art511 at Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY in 2018; “OPEN (C)ALL: Up For Debate”, Gallery at BRIC House, Brooklyn, NY in 2016; “Coup de Chateau” featuring the Vescom collection at the Gemeente Museum, Helmond, The Netherlands in 2013; “Inhumane Society “, curated by Eric Heist for Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY in 2006; “Home Is Where The Art Is Or Hybrid Affairs”, curated by Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt at the National Arts Club, New York, NY, in 1996 and “Made To Order; America’s Most Wanted Paintings”, curated by Geno Rodriguez at the Alternative Museum, New York, NY in 1995. 

In 1996, I co-curated “Voyeur’s Delight: An Interactive Exhibition”, one of the last shows at Franklin Furnace’s physical gallery space in New York, NY. In conjunction with the show, we held a panel discussion, “Private Eyes: A Panel Investigation of Voyeurism”, moderated by Martha Wilson at The New School University, New York, NY and guest edited the magazine, NewObservations #112, “Caught Looking”. The show was recorded by ‘Gallery Beat’, with Paul H.O. and Walter Robinson, and now exists in the Franklin Furnace Project Archives, "U-B-D Judge", New York, NY.