PHILLIP HUA
NEWS AND ACTIVITY
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Group show in Los Angeles at Walter Maciel Gallery
For this exhibit, I created two portraits of my mother and father. The exhibition, With Liberty and Justice for Some, explores the cultural contributions that immigrants have added to the fabric of American life. I'm happy to have had the opportunity to explore a new method of image making by layering multiple depths of paper to form the portraits. This method is a metaphor for the various facets of personalities that we all encounter in another person. With all the facets pieced together, we get a fuller and more complete picture of each person.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Artist talk and opening at two Bay Area museums
Salon at the Triton
Group Exhibition
April 16 - May 29, 2016
Reception: Friday, April 22nd, from 6-8pm
Join me at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara for a group exhibition juried by Executive Director of the Monterey Museum of Art, Charlotte Eyerman.
Triton Museum of Art
1505 Warburton Avenue
Santa Clara, CA 95050
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Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Muni’s Moving Art Galleries a Timely Artistic Adventure
Local artist Phillip Hua’s latest exhibit speaks to two ideals long-embraced by San Franciscans: inclusion and unity. What’s unique about Hua’s latest gallery showing, though, is that you can only see it on Muni buses.
Hua’s new exhibit, We are San Francisco: Unified Portraits of a Divided San Francisco, is part of Muni Art, an innovative artistic adventure between San Francisco Beautiful and the SFMTA that places local art in unusual places — in this case on 50 Muni buses.
Hua’s portraits feature bisected headshots that merge the faces of plumbers with bankers, techies with tattoo artists and retired administrators with painters. His perspective comes from a unique vantage point. As an artist, he’s saddened by fellow members of the city’s creative community displaced because they can no longer afford to live in San Francisco.
But he’s quick to not lay blame on the tech community and feels that anger towards them has been misplaced. Hua says his husband, a tech sector employee, has given him a more balanced perspective.
“I’ve met lots of people in tech who were not these caricatures who were being depicted through the community,” Hua said. “They’re not these drones who have come into the city with zero culture and zero class and are just a parasite on San Francisco.”
Just as Muni is a system that connects neighborhoods, Hua said, the portraits are a way to connect — literally and figuratively — the rich cultural diversity of the city.
“It’s a way for me to urge unity through turbulent times.”
Hua is optimistic that the Muni Art installations will start a larger conversation about more art in public places, especially in San Francisco, with its overflowing creative community. Hua suggests that gentrification has actually led to a lot of things being cleaned up and beautified in the city, often times with art.
“What you’re seeing in San Francisco is that people really want more art. I think that really aligns with the goal of SF Beautiful and the [Muni Art] project.”
One of the project’s goals is to spread the Muni Art buses throughout the city so as many riders as possible will have to the opportunity to experience these moving art galleries. Each of the installations will travel along different routes over the next three months.
You won’t see the artwork until you board the bus, so if you’re lucky enough to catch one, make sure you share the experience by using the hashtag #SFMuniArt.
-Mark DeAnda
Interior car card panels from Hua’s We are San Francisco: Unified Portraits of a Divided San Francisco: (Photo courtesy of Phillip Hua)
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Monday, July 6, 2015
Muni Project: We Are San Francisco
Portfolio examples of the style that I would use for the Muni art project. Actual work created is detailed below.
I'm a finalist for the inaugural San Francisco Beautiful Muni Art project, which plans to place art in Muni buses. But the decision for the artwork is up to you!
Voting requires registration on Neighborland.com, a site devoted to empowering people to take action on local issues. It's a simple process which would take less than two minutes.
Here's my project proposal:
We Are San Francisco
There’s
been a lot of talk about the gentrification of San Francisco. The winners and
the losers. The old and the new. The “techies” and everyone else.
The
anger is real. The tension is palpable.
But with the wave of change are new ideas and new energy. The old San
Francisco is merging with the new San Francisco.
And
in unison, they announce, “I am San Francisco.”
For
my project proposal, I envision divided portraits of the people of San Francisco,
merged with another. Plumbers with bankers, techies with tattoo artists. From
the Presidio to the Portola, and the Marina to the Bayview. Just as Muni is a
system that connects neighborhoods, the portraits are a way to connect,
literally and figuratively, the rich cultural diversity of the city.
“The
Spirit of San Francisco” is about inclusion. Everyone from the freaks to the
geeks and the hipsters to the homeless. The
open arms of the city embrace all who reach for it. My project serves to bring
people together into the same “space” as a way urge unity through turbulent
times.
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If you'd like to see this project realized, please vote for my proposal!
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Let the Sunshine In
Dawning. 24”x18”. Performative print (Hand-pulled screen print on construction paper). 2015. Edition of 500.
Folsom Lake, CA, 2011 (left), 2014 (right)
California's drought has me worried.
If you've seen the pictures, you know. It's scary. I thought about what
I could do to help with the situation. I took shorter showers. I
flushed less. I saved my sink water for feeding plants.
I’ve been exploring the idea that commerce and consumption would be the driving force behind nature’s destruction. But
the more I thought of it, the more I began to realize that we were
only destroying ourselves. And ultimately, nature would just come back
once we were long gone. And this is the inspiration for Dawning.
Drawing inspiration from Tibetan mandalas, Dawning is a screenprint on construction paper that meditates on the intersection of contemporary life and nature. The central design focuses on our preoccupations with wealth, war, technology, and consumption.
Dawning; detail image
Camouflaged
behind it in green ink is Nature. With exposure to light, areas of
the green construction paper begin to fade, and Nature emerges from the edges. Dawning isn't just an image. It's an experience and it reveals itself to you as you shed light on it.
Dawning; detail image; before sunlight exposure (left), after one week in direct sunlight (right)
While every little bit helps, I realize that my own personal conservation attempts are not enough. Real environmental conservation needs to come through policy changes. So I'm also donating a portion of each sale to the Sierra Club, an environmental lobbying organization.
The first 200 in the edition are $150. The next 200 are $200, and the last 100 are $250.
Soooooo... Buy some art, help save the world?
EXHIBITION CALENDAR
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May 1-3
stARTup Fair (with A Simple Collective)
Hotel Del Sol, room 302
3100 Webster Street
San Francisco, CA
May 16-June 14
Gross Domestic Product
E-Moderne Gallerie (solo exhibition)
116 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA
May 21-June 7
Bearing Witness in the Drone Age
Fort Mason
San Francisco, CA
May 22-24
Affordable Art Fair (with Artered Gallery)
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
1 Expo Drive, Wan Chai
Hong Kong
June 11-14
Affordable Art Fair (with Cynthia Corbett Gallery)
Lower Fairground Site
East Heath Road
Hampstead, London
August 6-August 31
Salon 8
222 Hollywood Road
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong
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Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Calligrapher (Carried Across)
Check out the site for a new collaborative piece I did with Taras Mashtalir.
The Calligrapher (Carried Across)
The Calligrapher (Carried Across)
Sunday, December 21, 2014
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