Bernice Bing, nicknamed “Bingo,” was a Chinese-American lesbian painter at the most difficult time to be a Chinese-American lesbian painter.

She was born in 1936 to a Chinese immigrant father and a Chinese-American mother. Her mother was only 18 when she had Bernice and died at the age of 23 due to a heart problem, leaving Bernice and her sister to live in foster homes and periodically with their grandmother. She explained that “drawing was the thing that kept [her] connected” as she wasn’t particularly good in school. So Bingo’s childhood was rocky to say the least but it didn’t slow her down in terms of her accomplishments.

Bing got a scholarship to California College of the Arts where she earned both a BFA and MFA. It was there that she learned to embrace her Chinese-American duality and use her heritage to her advantage in her art. She became part of the Abstract Expressionists, but was sicker than the rest of them because she incorporated Zen Buddhism and calligraphy in her art rather than purely abstract shapes.

It was her grandmother who strengthened her view on what it meant to be an Asian woman. She said of her, “My grandmother represented china, the old country, bringing over her feelings of anger and subservience, but her strength, too. She was a woman who had bound feet, bound at the age of five.” (Too gnarly!) So in an attempt to connect to her ancestry, she embarked on a trip to the old country and also to Korea and Japan. She said about her experience, “I suddenly realized that I was in the majority, yet, also, though I had the same skin color, I was a stranger…My posture, my dress was different, my accent was quite different –everyone knew I was a foreigner.” Her feeling of not belonging in either China and America led her to The Asian American Women Artist’s Association, where she thrived more than she ever had before. You go, girl.