Polluta Propaganda Banner Paintings
2016 - 2018
These Polluta propaganda promotional banner paintings (Chinese ink and acrylic on canvas), loosely based on Pop Chinese posters, are a mesh of the childlike, the political and the vernacular. Each painting is based on a child's drawing: the artist visited schools to share the imaginary world of Polluta and invited children to help design it. Imagined by children uninhibited by social norms and rules, Polluta is fluid and ever shape-shifting. The sky is not the limit. It is the beginning.
These paintings exhibit playfulness, dark humour, subversion and contradictions, and tell a double- edged joke on both the bizarre world of Polluta and the twenty-first century the artist lives in.
"While the opposite of truth may appear to be falsehood, it is actually untruth. Just as undeath has the appearance of life, untruth has the appearance of truth. How are we to distinguish truth from untruth? According to lore and legend, the undead leave no reflection on a mirror, enabling humans to distinguish them from the living. Fung’s paintings function in a similar way, using the whimsical and ridiculous to filter out untruths so that they reflect only truth."
excerpt from "Polluta as The Mirror of Truth"
Joon Nak Choi, Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
"The Polluta painting found its way to the special place above our bed and has made me smile for years. It’s like waking up each morning with the United Nation’s tribunal at my back. Michelle’s work is special. I feel that it is one thing to be able to convey your thoughts about a serious topic and to do it well. It is quite another to be able to convey those thoughts in a way that is not only serious, but also makes you smile. The detail is exquisite, her topics are spot on and her joyful humor will captivate you. Keep on making us think and smile my friend!"
Denny Rofkar. Sitka, Alaska, USA