Chris Kienke

Region: South

This series of work started with a laugh, what the hell are these creatures? I was given a figurine as a gag gift at Christmas several years ago while I was living in Dubai. My interest in finding out about the figurine led me to Zhu pa Zhaie. He is known for his laziness, his gluttony, and his propensity for lusting after pretty women. These “sexy” scantily clad pigs squeezing their exposed breasts and striking seductive poses are not typically acceptable material in the Muslim world, however these items were found on open display in a Japanese yen store in Dubai. I am interested in these artifacts as global detritus. A sort of displacement of material culture, a mass export of bad taste on a scale that the censors are defenseless to stop. The translation of these figurines into images done in charcoal on paper allows these items to be seen in line with all the Venus’s that have come before. These drawings are a humorous and satirical critique of a patriarchal art world that would surely be approved of by Zhu pa Zhaie himself.