Special thanks to Ella H and Parker A for this week's blog post:

This week at Oxbow, we were visited by Hung Liu, an artist who immigrated to the United States from China in 1984. We started off the week with a presentation on scale and size, and shortly after, chose small objects to base our own large scale oil paintings on. We were given three by three canvases to work with, which was a challenge for many of us, who had never worked in that scale or with the medium of oil paint. Throughout the week, Hung Liu helped us with our technical skills and pushed us when we became discouraged. At the end of our week’s work, we held a critique in which Hung Liu and our peers gave us input on our small object paintings, which we had diligently worked on for over 12 hours in total.

We were also given the opportunity to hear from Hung Liu about her own work and life experiences during her artist lecture at COPIA. Jeff Kelley, art critic and husband of Hung Liu, also talked about Hung Liu’s life and work at the lecture. On days out of the studio, we were granted the pleasure of listening to and learning from Jeff’s knowledge of the art world. We were shown movies on renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and John Cage, and were led to question what we knew about art.

Overall, the experience of having art experts such as Hung Liu and Jeff Kelley visit Oxbow was memorable for all of us. Although Oxbow will miss having them on campus, we’re looking forward to our all school retreat next weekend in the Marin Headlands!!