About Lucy P. Liu

As an advocate for traditional Chinese papercutting art, faith-inspired papercutting, and spiritual papercutting, Lucy has consistently dedicated herself to integrating “papercutting” into diverse forms, including public art, wall art, story illustration, home decoration, festival celebrations, classroom crafts, and more. Through multidimensional 2D and 3D artistic designs, she reveals the beauty of papercutting.

Her first art monograph, Heavenly Grace, was published in 2020. It features 22 faith-themed papercutting works accompanied by matching inspirational poems, as well as a co-authored academic paper with Dr. Sun from Northwest University that deeply explores the intrinsic connections among papercutting, faith, and spiritual practice.

Lucy’s creative work gained media attention as early as 2013, when she was invited to participate in the 26th National Wilderness Art Festival in the United States—a prestigious nationwide exhibition encompassing all art forms. Exhibiting her personal papercutting works, she stood out among 146 participating artists nationwide and was awarded sixth place by a jury of art academy professors (with the top ten artists all receiving honors).

As a longtime member of the Guild of American Papercutters (GAP, founded in 1986 and comprising papercutting artists from around the world), Lucy’s outstanding contributions led to her being invited as the keynote speaker at the GAP 2021 International Conference, where she delivered a professional English presentation on the significant role of Chinese papercutting as the origin of global papercutting art. Her works were selected for publication in First Cutter magazine in 2019 and received dedicated feature coverage on the GAP official website in 2023 and 2024.

Since 2017, Lucy has served multiple times as resident artist at the Asian Heritage Museum, performing “papercutting shows” and teaching classes for various celebrations. Since 2021, she has been resident artist at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, presenting papercutting performances for major Chinese New Year celebrations. In 2020, her live papercutting demonstration and solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (the third-largest art collection institution in the world) deeply moved the attending audience.

Lucy currently serves as curator of the Papercutting Art Museum under the Guild of American Papercutters—the world’s only professional museum dedicated exclusively to papercutting. The museum houses works by artists from around the globe, with its oldest pieces dating back to 17th-century European artists, and regularly hosts themed exhibitions and papercutting workshops throughout the year.

In art education and cultural promotion, Lucy conducted English-language papercutting lectures and workshops in 2013 and 2014 at the Lifelong Learning Center of Benedictine University and Forest Lake College. She has also presented specialized papercutting lectures, World Culture Week activities, and hands-on teaching at numerous libraries, schools, and research institutions, including the Chicago Public Library, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy.

For Lucy, being able to pursue her beloved papercutting art and thereby inspire and influence others remains the greatest honor and motivation that has sustained her dedication to this day.