These girls are in fray – playing, running, swimming, climbing, laughing, crying, attacking, dying. Referencing a traditional Chinese Art genre known as Boys Playing, Lu’s energetic ceramics and watercolors explore issues of identity and place for East Asian women in America. The Boys Playing genre depicts male children at play and is a manifestation of the higher cultural value placed on males over females. Lu manipulates the classic Chinese genre by replacing boys with conjoined and fragmented girls. Lu’s girls explore notions of multiple cultural identities, fragmented selves, ideas of play for boys and for girls, and the intersection of play and violence.