Born in Manchuria in 1948 and raised in Beijing, Hung Liu grew up amongst the city's Communist elite, attending the same prestigious girls' boarding school as Mao's and Deng Xiaoping's daughters. She was re-educated during the Cultural Revolution working seven days a week in the countryside. She later studied art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and then at the University of California, San Diego where she received a degree in visual arts.  Her father had a difficult time in China being a captain of the Nationalist Army (the Kuomintang) and was sent to a labor camp.  Liu didn't see him again until she was 46.  She is now a tenured professor at Mills College where she teaches painting. 

Hung Liu has shown at museum exhibitions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The De Young Museum, San Francisco, the Kemper Museum, Kansas City, and others. Her works are part of the collections of the National Museum of American Art-the Smithonian, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Los Angeles County Museum to name a few.  This is her first time in Hong Kong.