Saturday, November 22, 2008

Vargas, China Style

Web page banner, Hu Ming
The Transparent Uniform by Hu Ming

Tiananmen Square, Hu Ming


Chairman Mao and his gang of renown would be rolling in their graves if they saw their beloved Army and demure womanhood being portrayed as shown above. The China based observer Shanghaiist blog introduced the artist this way.

Highly controversial (and tit-tilating) art works from 53 year old Beijing-born painter Hu Ming (呼鸣). Hu's parents were military doctors who had always hoped their daughter would some day become a great surgeon. During her days in high school when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, Hu's time was all spent either drawing the portrait of Chairman Mao (after her teacher found out she loved painting) or studying the Little Red Book. Finding it all very boring, Hu begged her parents to let her join the army. They relented, and at age 15, Hu joined the People's Liberation Army, where she would serve another 20 years in various roles as a hospital broadcaster/announcer, a librarian, a projectionist, recreational club director, cultural secretary and nurse.
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The artist's profile explains that the time spent working in the hospital and being around withered and dead bodies caused Ms. Ming to hate the sight of an ill body. She began to paint only healthy voluptuous bodies to clear her mind of the images she worked with everyday.
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In the late 1980's she was able to travel to New Zealand to study English. The opportunity for freedom was at hand and she stayed on to open a studio, and eventually move to Australia in 1999.

Hu Ming reveals an Alberto Vargas like touch, as she captures the erotic essence of Chinese women, PLA style. She began offering her work in 1995. As one views her work over the years a pattern of boldness becomes apparent as she graduates to portraying women of the PLA in her erotica. Even borrowing a topic from her own past, by painting several young nurses practicing how to do injections on each other.


Link to the Shanghaiist post.


Take a break and visit her site.Hu Ming

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice! To hell with 毛泽东 & the rest of his ilk.