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KQ Huang

kqhuangart

About KQ:

My doodle is inspired by John Tenniel's illustration of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. I've replaced his standard with a red lantern and given him some hong bao. I've been researching and making work about the largely unknown Chinese Labour Corps in World War One recently who were employed by the British and French in huge numbers to do manual labour tasks such as loading trains and digging trenches. In place of Tenniel's scroll, my rabbit carries an empty munition shell which the Chinese workers skilfully engraved with dragons and traditional patterns.

I'm a British-Chinese artist exploring the labour, history and heritage of the Chinese diaspora. LNY always brings back memories of exciting lion dances and running away from terrifyingly loud firecrackers as a kid in my grandad’s hometown in Taishan, Guangdong. We got lost trying to find my ancestor’s grave so most of them were set off in the wrong place...

Fill in the blank: LNY means _______ to me.

cultural celebration (and food - of course food)

What’s new for this upcoming year?

I've recently started painting on silk. Silk has been used in painting since the Chinese Tang dynasty and as a form of currency long before that. It was traded as a luxury item four thousand years ago. Silk is also the only animal-derived fibre made from the same proteins as human skin. I'm interested in using the medium to explore histories of the Chinese diaspora, particularly their labour and its commoditization.

Inside Lamqua's Western-style paintings of Chinese tumour patients in the 19th century