Milk and Honey, 2008
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 Sweet and Sour Pork 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: she has a half dozen two-headed Chinamen babies alternately suckling her very pert teats and being naughty by pulling each others pigtails. This is disorienting oriental auspicious imagery indeed, but the vibrant palette, deft craftsmanship, and tongue-in-cheek humor keep this work from tumbling into grotesque (Sam Lee, Chinatown).