Claude Lawrence infuses elements of jazz music into his monumental abstract paintings. Like a jazz musician who follows and creates new chord progressions, Lawrence paints compositions that rhythmically operate “as a fusion of improvisational matter governed by memory.” With energetic, graffiti-like scrawls and gestural, fluid brushstrokes in bold colors, his works avoid allusive imagery and are in the service of significant social change.  

Trained in the practice of creating realistic art to highlight political and social issues, Hung Liu’s paintings were inspired by historical photographs. Her subjects ranged from traditional Chinese birds and flowers to marginalized figures such as refugees, laborers, and prisoners. Liu incorporated linseed oil washes and drips into her paintings to “preserve and destroy the image,” the way time erodes memory. Rendered from close-up photographs she captured at national parks and historical sites throughout the United States, each painting from her Dandelion series depicts windswept or intact dandelions, suggesting that these images “can be scattered to the winds of consciousness.”

Specializing in various media—drawing, installation, performance, painting, and sculpture—Rachel Marks investigates humankind’s relationship with nature and celebrates the world’s diversity using the tree as her main symbol. While studying the migration of monarch butterflies in Mexico, Marks created Livreation, giving back to the earth by sustainably utilizing the pages of donated or found books as her medium. A “multi-environmental and socio-cultural portrait,” Livreation highlights nature’s fragility and beauty while spreading awareness of the need for its preservation.