Continuing and Recomended Exhibitions
When The Year of the Golden Pig dawned in 2007, reportedly millions of Chinese women were enthusiastically working towards having the good fortune of
JL / ArtScene
May 01, 2009
When The Year of the Golden Pig dawned in 2007, reportedly millions of Chinese women were enthusiastically working towards having the good fortune of giving birth to a golden piglet: a child who would be blessed with lifelong prosperity. Phung Huynh, a mother herself, must have certainly known this when she painted 鈥淪weet and Sour Pork鈥� last year. The life-size sow stretches across a six-foot long, brilliantly orange canvas with a Mona Lisa smile on her face and back hooves flexing in contentment. After all, she has a half dozen two-headed Chinaman babies alternately suckling her very pert teats and being naughty by pulling each other鈥檚 pigtails. This is disorienting imagery indeed, but the vibrant palette, deft craftsmanship, and tongue-in-cheek humor keep this work from tumbling into being merely grotesque (Sam Lee Gallery, Chinatown).
