Kristen Liu-Wong

About

Kristen Liu-Wong is a San Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based painter and illustrator known for her vibrant pop surrealist works that blend everyday narratives with fantastical elements. Raised by her mother, an elementary art school teacher, and her grandmother, Liu-Wong left San Francisco at age 17 to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she majored in Illustration and graduated in 2013. Her work has been exhibited extensively across the East and West coasts and features in galleries and collections throughout the United States. Liu-Wong's artistic practice synthesizes diverse influences including Greek and Roman mythology, American folk art, cartoons, comic books, Japanese erotic art, and consumer culture. Her signature style employs a candy-colored pastel palette, heavy patterning, and intricate compositions to depict strong female figures navigating surreal, often darkly humorous scenarios. She has developed a distinctive visual language that explores themes of human nature, femininity, mythology, and existential struggle, creating what critics describe as feminist surrealism—a parallel world that mirrors reality while remaining timeless and infused with possibility.

Pop Surrealism; feminist surrealism featuring vivid, candy-colored scenes with strong female figures, intricate patterns, and references to mythology, folk art, and contemporary iconography