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Born in China and witness to the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Hung Liu immigrated to the United States in 1984.

Central to Liu’s art is an investigation of the historical treatment and status of Chinese women, whom she says suffer multiple forms of oppression. While addressing broader sociopolitical issues, her art is highly personal and based on her own experiences in both China and America.

This painting depicts the artist’s mother standing as a tourist in front of a rural landscape outside of Beijing. Like so many of Liu’s paintings, it is based on a photograph that has been translated onto the canvas using a self-consciously ironic manipulation of the socialist realist style in which the artist was originally trained. The cut-out shape of the picture makes it appear that the old woman is supporting the landscape on her shoulders, a device that calls to mind Chairman Mao’s statement that “women hold up half the sky.” Yet the figure’s world-weary face, slumped shoulders, and drab clothing subvert the idealistic optimism of the slogan, suggesting the reality that most Chinese women have always led lives of hard, thankless drudgery.