"The Burden"

Kristen Liu-Wong "The Burden" Archival Pigment Print Edition of 75 Signed and numbered by Kristen. 18" x 24", full bleed. "This piece was originally painted for my 2022 solo show “Hard Pressed” at Corey Helford Gallery. The show, which had opened when we were all still reeling from the pandemic, was an exploration of the internal and external pressures that we have to contend with everyday. At the time I had been reading “The Stranger” and wallowing in existential angst and simultaneously I came across Franz Stuck’s painting “Sisyphus.” I felt inspired to make my own Sisyphus painting for the show since it had begun to shape itself into a show about pressures and burdens and there is no bigger burden than that of existence and the eternal struggle to find meaning in an often meaningless world. In Stuck’s piece the figure is impossibly strong but the flesh is tortured, weary and monumental in its state of near defeat. For my interpretation of this iconic figure, I recast Sisyphus as a powerfully built woman, straining but still defiant in her battle upwards. The ambiguous boulder has been replaced by a bundle filled with the all the trappings that make up modern day life: a stuffed hippo from my childhood, a magic 8 ball representing the uncertain future, bills, a phone with text alerts, birth control pills representing the specific reproductive burden that women carry, a caged bird, etc. Crows watch on in amusement while a squirrel, holding their own small burden (in this case an acorn), watches on in sympathy, acting as a reminder that everyone has their own shit to deal with."