Shaumin Liu

Here is Michelle’s wonderful story of her mother.

“My mother was a painter, industrial designer, art consultant, and gallery owner. Her work shaped not only the arts community but also my own life. She moved fluidly between abstraction, impressionism, and realism, embracing oil, acrylic, watercolor, and mixed media with an intuitive confidence. Her work was as much about real materials and forms as it was about deeper expressions of the world.

"Born in Taiwan, my mother pursued an education in the arts, earning degrees from National Taiwan Normal University, Illinois State University, and the University of Illinois at Champaign. After moving to Virginia, she mentored emerging artists and designers while teaching at Old Dominion University and Tidewater Community College. She excelled in industrial design while working for companies like General Electric and Samsonite, where she held numerous patents. Despite her success, she chose to leave that career behind when she had me, prioritizing time with her daughter over the demands of corporate design.

“In 1992, she opened the River Gallery in Chesapeake, Virginia. The gallery was an extension of her artistic vision—a place where she fostered an appreciation for local art and artists. She curated exhibitions for painters such as Robert Vick and Charles Sibley, many of whom were also her close friends. In the late nineties, she worked to create fine art and custom framing for TowneBank, a setting where culture was made widely accessible to the community. The gallery was also known for its high-end custom framing, an art form in itself in which she took great pride.

“Growing up in Portsmouth and Chesapeake, I was surrounded by her work—her paintings, her aesthetic sensibility, and her fearless approach to experimentation. Her creative practice became the model for my own. When I went on to study at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and later became an associate professor of architecture, her influence was always with me. Her ability to shift between disciplines, to see the world in layers of color and structure, shaped the way I approach design and teaching.

Shaumin Lin was an accomplished artist whose paintings hang in many TowneBank offices. Known for her beautiful landscapes (below) she also enjoyed teaching classes where people of all ages could learn to paint.

This beautiful landscape by Shaumin Liu hangs in the Harbour View Financial Center in Suffolk.

“She was private, thoughtful, and deeply committed to her craft. While she was known among artists and collectors, she never sought the spotlight for herself. Instead, she let her work speak. And it continues to do so, in the paintings that remain, in the gallery she built, and in the lives of the people she touched.

“Her passing last September leaves an immeasurable void, but her legacy lives on—not only in the art she created but also in the way she taught me to see the world.”

Michelle is an artist in her own right and teaches architectural design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She has coordinated an exhibition of her mother’s artwork on view now at the River Gallery, 3106 Western Branch Boulevard in Chesapeake. She is donating a portion of the proceeds to the TowneBank Foundation. “My mom believed very strongly in giving back. She would have loved this,” Michelle says.