Three girls watching TV

Liu Xiaodong bases his paintings on photographs that he takes himself. These photographs feature ordinary people going about their daily lives. Three girls watching TV is part of a series that the artist made after a trip to Singapore. It captures three prostitutes caught off-duty, gazing – with expressions that range from boredom to contentment – at an out-of-frame TV. Xiaodong’s 2001 painting was featured in the Hayward Gallery exhibition The Painting of Modern Life, in 2007.