Hoo Fan Chon is a Malaysian visual art practitioner based in George Town, Penang. By reframing everyday life with irony and wry humour, his works observe the oscillations and toggles between social classes, the official and the informal, the highbrow and the lowbrow.
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︎ email ︎ cv
✺ 2024 ✺ 2023 ✺ 2022 ✺ 2021 ✺ 2020 ✺ 2019 ✺ 2018 ✺ older works ✺ photography ✺ video ✺ painting ✺ sculpture ✺ installation ✺ writing ✺ george town ✺ archive ✺ fish ✺ durian ✺ badminton ✺
Selamat Tahun Baru Cina Babi
Selamat Tahun Baru Cina Babi
Woodblock print on Chinese rice paper with gold flecks, 29.7 x 42 cm, edition of 88 + 2 AP, 2019
Woodblock print on Chinese rice paper with gold flecks, 29.7 x 42 cm, edition of 88 + 2 AP, 2019
This woodblock print was made to commemorate the Year of the Pig. Both an auspicious cultural symbol and sometimes deployed as an ethnic slur, the pig is one of the more misunderstood creatures in the region. It is often depicted as being slow-witted, and in the famous words of Forrest Gump's mom, "stupid is as stupid does". But being dumb is sometimes also a way of outsmarting others in difficult situations, and it may also demonstrate a higher virtue – humility – according to Chinese philosopher, Laozi.