KRISTEN LIU-WONG: UNDERWORLD POOL PARTY

Interview by Kristin Farr / Portrait by Samantha Grad

IF YOU WERE TO AWAKEN IN A SCENE FROM A KRISTEN LIU-WONG painting, it might be with a sudden start, much like election results jolted a complacent, and in tum, complicit America. It's no coincidence that Juxtapoz followed with successive covers featuring strong female protagonists, including the latest, a badass women commissioned from Ms. Liu Wong (if you're nasty). Gender equity stumbled back last year, so we must loudly express through art what we know to be true: women should rule, and if you try to grab us where it counts, you should get eaten by a Doberman.

As she grows into her own personal enlightenment, Kristen's women express, and maybe embrace, the struggles of power and sexually, painted in a tropical underworld setting. Representing a new generation that summons both folk art from the past and aesthetics of the future, the artist announces her presence and challenges the present.