Hung Liu’s painting depicts two unidentified people beside China’s Grand Canal, the world’s oldest, longest man-made waterway. This work incorporates important elements of the country’s past and the artist’s life. Liu was assigned to work in rice and wheat fields during the communist Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Later she studied mural painting at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Art before relocating to California. In 1991 on her first visit home, Liu found a group of vintage photographs of figures from across China. These images became the subjects of her paintings. In 2000 when Liu painted this work, the Chinese Government announced a massive modification of the Grand Canal in order to reverse water flow from the south to the north. By layering thin washes of paint, the artist approximates a mural’s worn surface. She chose to pair anonymous figures from a found photograph with a named cultural icon that, like an ancient mural, survives today as a relic of its original form.