Alum Bridges Art and Science

Qinqin Liu, Ph.D. ’90, approaches her art from a scientific perspective, drawing on her experience at UC Davis exploring the intersection of art and science.

Liu was first exposed to art growing up in a textile-weaving family in Xianyan, China. She started practicing art during the Cultural Revolution, painting murals for her village community. “When I went to the countryside, that was when my art flourished. All the farmers loved my art, so they gave me opportunity,” she said. “I first recognized how powerful art can be in that difficult situation.” She studied plants in China and then decided to come to the United States to continue her studies in plant-microbe interaction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After graduation, she went to UC Davis for a Ph.D. in botany.

Artwork by Qinqin Liu (Courtesy)

At UC Davis, she studied how microbial interactions helped stress tolerance in native plant species, and used visual analysis with electron and fluorescence microscopes to study art. “That’s where I got a lot of inspiration and research-based questions,” she said. “Curiosity and creativity, this is a connection between art and science. So I decided to become an art scientist.”

After graduation, Liu became an environmental scientist at the California Department of Water Resources, doing art on the weekends. Now, almost two decades later, upon her retirement from the state, she has become a full-time artist, with exhibits around the country and internationally, from Ireland to China. 

Liu also teaches art and attends workshops and artist residency programs, transporting her art around in a one-woman operation. Although she’s been quite successful, she said her journey as an artist-scientist has been isolating at times. “Sometimes I’m the only scientist in the art community. And then I go to the science community and I’m the only artist there for some events,” she said. “When you have the lonely road, then you have to find a way to overcome this challenge.”

Liu has been able to connect to other artist-scientists through shows and social media. “People with a similar mind come to you or become a friend,” she said. Liu has also found fulfillment in interactive, collaborative art, working with peers, students and community members to create pieces. She also teaches rice paper printing and ecology art to youth at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon. “We collect leaves, natural materials from the rainforest, and then I show the kids how to do art. Then we’re making a collective artwork, interactive and together,” she said. Liu was able to bring these collaborative art pieces to her first solo art installation in Europe, Symbiotic Lens, at SomoS’Art, Berlin in 2024.

Liu has an upcoming art residency in Sonoma County with the Chalk Hill Artist Residency Program. In the future, she said she hopes to go to Australia and then back to China to connect with the art, nature and culture. “I want to explore more,” she said.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}