For June on 8-bridges, Friends Indeed Gallery presents new work by Livien Yin.

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Sensual Chinese men and androgynous figures take center stage in Livien Yin’s painting series, Paper Suns. The fictionalized portraits are inspired by the largely hidden experiences of Chinese-born “paper sons and daughters” who became American citizens by obtaining forged documents that stated they were children of Chinese Americans. Through repurposing imagery from Exclusion era photographs and American Realist paintings, Yin visualizes scenes of Chinese immigrants where desire, pleasure and new camaraderies set the tone.

Livien Yin received her BA from Reed College in 2012 and MFA from Stanford University in 2019. Her upcoming first solo show opens July 2021 at The New Gallery in Calgary, Alberta. She has been awarded a 2019-2020 Graduate Fellowship at Headlands Center for the Arts, the 2019 American Austrian Foundation Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts, and the 2019 Anita Squires Fowler Memorial Award in Photography. Yin lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.