We are presenting two solo exhibitions showcasing two exceptional Bay Area artists, Hung Liu and Guillermo Galindo. 

Our main gallery will feature the mixed-media portraiture of trailblazer Hung Liu (1948–2021). The retrospective was curated by Dr. Dorothy Moss, founding director of the Hung Liu Foundation and former curator at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and the late Jeff Kelley, Liu’s widower and longtime collaborator.

As one of the most important Chinese-American artists of the twentieth century, Liu transformed historical photography into a visual language of empathy, directly in subversion of the socialist realism of her early training in Cultural Revolution-era China. Her works are at once emotional and indexical, venerating and immortalizing marginalized figures such as laborers, refugees, and sex workers.

In tandem, our back gallery will feature the works of our gallery artist: experimental composer, interdisciplinary artist, and ritualist Guillermo Galindo. Fresh from a Guggenheim fellowship and recent acquisition by the Guggenheim Museum, Galindo continues his practice developing the unseen–frequencies, mythologies, oral histories–into visual systems. Galindo’s upcoming solo exhibition will present Tortoise Cycle: a suite of cosmological paintings and annotated photographs from Galindo’s residency in Roswell, New Mexico. With his ongoing tortoise-shell series, the artist brings his iconic diagrammatic mark-making into conversation with the Mayan myth that the universe is housed on the back of a giant tortoise.

ABOUT QUALIA CONTEMPORARY ART

Located in downtown Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley, Qualia Contemporary Art is dedicated to supporting outstanding established and emerging artists working in a variety of media – including painting, sculpture, and photography, as well as experimental practices with mixed media and technology. The gallery is committed to building lasting relationships with artists, collectors, curators, and scholars and providing a vital platform for dialogues on contemporary art and culture in the Bay Area and beyond.

Since opening in Fall 2020, the gallery has mounted over 30 exhibitions, executing a range of ambitious installations and showcasing new curatorial concepts. Highlights from these presentations include the U.S. debuts of PAN Hsinhua, LYU Peng, and XU Hongming, beloved local artists like Younhee Paik, Joe Ferriso, and Stella Zhang, internationally-recognized artists such as Paul DeMarinis, Guillermo Galindo, YANG Jiechang, and WANG Tiande, and collaborations with notable scholars and curators Alexander Nemerov, Richard Vinograd, Xiaoze Xie. Nemerov calls Qualia a “hidden gem in Silicon Valley.”

Images:

Recent Guggenheim acquisition: Guillermo Galindo, Entrada Imaginaria, 2015, Archival pigment print on Canson Infinity Bartya paper, 24 x 32 in.

Installation View: Guillermo Galindo's solo exhibition, “Transonic” (at Qualia's former space.) Pictured: Guillermo Galindo, "Fluid Spirit Nagual", 2022, High density recycled plastic from the Tijuana River, 40 x 55 x 25 in; 24 x 32 in Archival pigment prints: “Lone Jug”, 2015, “Brad en Perspectiva”, 2015, “Entrada Imaginaria”, 2015, “Avenida Glifos”, 2015; “Tree of Life”, 2022, Metal plexiglass, coil, sound elements, 81.5 x 37 x 30.5 in

Installation View: Hung Liu in “Our Bodies through our Eyes” (group show at Qualia Contemporary Art.) Pictured: Hung Liu, “White Butterflies”, 2011, Oil on Linen, 66 x 56 in; “Front and Back”, 2005-2010, Oil on canvas, 64 x 48 x 2 in; among works by Gina M. Contreras, Annie Duncan, and Huang Hairong

Installation View: Hung Liu in “Lasting Impressions: Works on Paper” (group show at Qualia Contemporary Art.) Pictured: Hung Liu, “Midsummer”, 2012, Woodblock print with acrylic ink on Rives BFK, 23.25 x 23.5 in; “Winter Blossom”, 2011, Woodblock print with acrylic ink on Rives BFK, 32.25 x 29.75 in; with a work by Sam Francis