DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR AWARD
LIU SHIMING
Liu Shiming Art Foundation Announces
the Inaugural Distinguished Educator Award Recipients
Recognizing outstanding adjunct educators in studio arts across the U.S. and Canada
The Liu Shiming Art Foundation is proud to announce Natalie Hunter (University of Waterloo) and Dana Lok(Columbia University) as the inaugural recipients of the Liu Shiming Distinguished Educator Award.
Established in 2025, the Distinguished Educator Award recognizes adjunct professors in the United States and Canada who have taught studio arts for at least five years and demonstrated exceptional dedication to teaching while maintaining their own creative practices. The award seeks to highlight the critical and often underappreciated role of adjunct faculty—artists who balance independent studio work with the responsibility of shaping the next generation of visual artists.
Honoring Liu Shiming’s Legacy
For fifteen years, Liu Shiming (1926–2010) served as the equivalent of an adjunct faculty member at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he had once been a student. Deeply committed to his students and to the craft of sculpture, Liu saw artmaking and teaching as inseparable pursuits—both rooted in empathy, humility, and the shared search for understanding. The Distinguished Educator Award honors that legacy by recognizing artists whose pedagogical approach reflects the same humanist spirit that defined Liu’s career.
2025 Recipients
Natalie Hunter
Based in Hamilton, Ontario, Natalie Hunter works across photography, installation, sculpture, and the moving image. Her multilayered, photo-based installations explore time, memory, and perception through light and materiality, often transforming transparent film into experiential environments. At the University of Waterloo, she teaches sculpture with an emphasis on experimentation, process, and embodied learning. Hunter has exhibited widely in Canada and abroad, and her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Dana Lok
An artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York, Dana Lok teaches painting and drawing at Columbia University. Her work explores the intersection of knowledge, language, and representation, revealing how perception is constructed through the visual. Lok has exhibited at Miguel Abreu Gallery, Clima, and Francois Ghebaly, among others, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Frieze, and Hyperallergic. As a teacher, she guides students toward deeper awareness of their creative motivations through attentive dialogue and reflection.
Award Details
Each recipient will receive a $10,000 unrestricted award and will be honored at the Foundation’s 2026 Gala, which will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Liu Shiming’s birth.
The Distinguished Educator Award complements the Foundation’s ongoing initiatives, including the Liu Shiming Scholarships and the Artist Grants Program, which together support both emerging and established artists across the globe. Through these programs, the Foundation continues Liu Shiming’s commitment to sustaining a living dialogue between art, education, and human experience.