Bling Dynasty, a new Hong Kong pop art show by Ernest Chang, re-envisions "Rick and Morty", "South Park" and other popular animations in multi-cultural paintings
Found amongst studio-gallery space The Stallery WCH’s usual neon hues and contrasting palettes is Ernest Chang’s new pop art series Bling Dynasty. At first glance, one can see the contrasting shades and hard-edged colouring that define pop art in the 1950s. But unlike the works by Andy Warhol, Chang’s paintings have layers of fading colours, distinct subject-background compositions, embroidery, calligraphy and dark brown wooden frames––all of which are hints of traditional Chinese art. What’s even more unusual is Eric Cartman from South Park at the centre of a portrait dressed in a Yuan Dynasty robe, as well as other visual references from Rick and Morty, Family Guy and many more animation and gaming titles.
Chang, a Chinese American artist now based in Hong Kong, reveals that the amalgamation of western, Chinese and pop art is a reflection of his modern family set up. “My parents have a huge part in my becoming an artist,” he says. “My mom is more western style. She loves and still paints with oil pastels and acrylic and Western calligraphy. My dad likes Chinese calligraphy. He’s super into Chinese opera and he listens to it on iPad. As for myself, I grew up watching shows like Rick and Morty. They are the kind of half-adult-half-children shows. South Park, for example, talks about very, very dark things. When I was watching the cartoons, I paused [at the moment of darkness], and then I took a photo of it, and I drew off that photo. In a way, I put a moment in a cartoon into another place. These characters are icons of my childhood. They represent me in a way.”
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Chang had his share of darkness before he became the founder and creative director of The Stallery WCH, a gallery-studio space presenting multicultural art in 2014. Today, he has landed five solo shows with his gallery and elsewhere, including the Hong Kong Affordable Art Fair and the Hong Kong Correspondent’s Club. Yet back in 2012, during his first year studying photography at Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida, Chang suffered from depression.
He dropped out the following year. In 2013, he returned to Hong Kong and studied Fine/Studio Arts at Savannah College of Art and Design, which he also quit after a year. “School gave me a lot of anxiety,” he recalls. “This style of pop art came from the struggle that I went through. Like Takashi Murakami’s work where there is a darkness in the colours, I use colours to attract people in order to discuss these problems. We keep hiding all these [emotions], and it’s really not healthy. I think they are worth exploring in our society.”