Pullman Hunter Museum Analysis

PULLMAN
On My visit to the Hunter Museum I chose the piece of art that I felt best related to. I picked the piece of art Pullman, by Hung Liu, because I loved the way they worked together to accomplish a mission. Pullman is a 2 dimensional wall piece created by Hung Liu in 2004, and was later purchased by the Hunter Museum in 2009. Pullman is A 66x132 inch oil on canvas, colored paining and is displayed on the wall in the museum. There is a wall text about the piece that can be found next to the painting. The painting is hard to define from close distance, but the farther you stand away the colors and textures come together. The paining is on a wall by itself, and is truly a breathtaking piece. We often take for granted the luxuries we have in the United States.
Hung Liu was born in Changchun, China in 1948 and grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when she was sent to the countryside to be “Re-educated” by the Maoist regime. She immigrated to the US in 1984 to

attend the University of California, San Diago, and was heavily influenced by the drip paintings and such as Jackson Pollock Liu uses historical Chinese photographs of generally anonymous individuals as the basis for her paintings. Liu manages to make her subjects, often peasants or laborers, look both touchingly human and symbolically charged. They are individuals as well as exemplars filtered through layers of expectation and stereotype about traditional Chinese life.
Pullman is part of a series that depicted the lives of poor peasant families.

Liu encountered these families during her four years in the countryside. The painting depicts two men, perhaps a father and son, working together to pull a boat upstream. Although the boat is not in the picture, one can sense the weight from the postures, effort and strength of the men. Two men are contrasted by small images of the fragile, precious snuff bottles and the delicate dragonfly in the corner, both traditional Chinese symbols. The painting shows the 2 men in perfect rhythm with the appearance of sweat falling from their efforts. The positive focus is the 2 men in the picture with many negative white and dark colors. I believe the artist wanted you to feel the darkness and the sadness of the men as they did what that had to do to survive. You can almost feel the pain as they stress their bodies to the limits. I was truly intrigued by this piece of work, and would love to learn more about the artist’s

work.