Artwork copyright Lucy Liu. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Play in Water, 1996

Lucy Liu
(American, born 1926)

Location: Emerson Elementary School, Pasco

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Play in Water is part of artist Lucy Liu's body of paintings composed using traditional Chinese ink-painting techniques. Liu noted that fish are a traditional subject in Chinese art, and are symbolic of happiness, longevity, abundance, and love. She composed this piece by first observing and sketching the form, gesture, and movement of live goldfish.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Pasco School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Pacific Northwest artist Lucy Liu creates traditional Chinese brush paintings and calligraphic works.
Lucy Liu grew up in northeastern China, where she learned artistic calligraphy as a child. After 1949 she lived in Taiwan, where she studied traditional Chinese landscape and bird and flowers painting. Working as a researcher for an American expert on Chinese folklore brought her to Berkeley, California in 1973. Ms. Liu earned a degree in fine arts in the Western tradition from Eastern Washington University in Cheney. She taught art at Seattle-area community colleges. In 1983, she founded the Chinese Arts Society Northwest.
In 1989, Lucy Liu was honored with a Washington State Governor's Heritage Award for her work as an artist, an art teacher, and a promoter of Chinese art, both within and outside of the Chinese-American community.