Ying Huang is a Manchurian-born Chinese Australian painter and printmaker. Known for her unique style of screenprinting that is directly etched onto raw steel metal, Huang’s work has been exhibited throughout Australia and in Hong Kong and Scotland. She was commissioned artist and has won awards from Print Council of Australia, the Victorian Flanagan Art Prize (Ballarat) and RMIT University Student Prize. In 2016, she was commissioned by Melbourne’s City of Yarra to create a six-walled mural representing its multicultural community.
Huang conceptualises a political art movement that she has termed Polipanda or Political Pop Propaganda Art. Polipanda is a hybrid practice combining political propaganda art and pop art explores how history is manipulated through mass media images and challenges us to rethink notions of authenticity and originality. Inspired by iconic images from film, photography, other cultural media and everyday life and personal experiences Huang recontextualises these images through her own lived experience of a negotiated cultural identity. Although often still recognisable, the images are unsettling, providing only a trace or imprint of their origins, their meaning altered and taking on a life of their own.
Her current work continues to satirise popular culture and political history. This work finds inspiration from Rose O’Neill’s Kewpie Doll, a character who is “a sort of little round fairy [and] whose…idea is to teach people to be merry and kind at the same time.” Huang inverts its optimism through its uncanny mischief by appropriating the ‘pie’ of kewpie. This series, which she terms as ‘Political-pie’, includes producing caricatures of notorious and influential political leaders such as Donald Trump (‘Trump-pie’), Kim Jong-Il (‘Kim-pie’) and Malcolm Turnbull (‘Malcolm-pie’). Huang’s work is playful, rebellious, humorous, yet provides unflinching and unapologetic commentary on the world of mass media images in which we live. She takes viewers on a light-hearted tour of the art world, prompting us to re-encounter our taken-for-granted experiences of ‘art’, everyday life, and popular culture.
Before Huang settled in Melbourne in 2005 she has lived and travelled in many counties throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East working as scuba diving instructor and teacher. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at RMIT in 2014.
It was during her last year of study at RMIT that Huang developed and originated her unique style of steel metal work that combines numerous traditional printmaking methods in one plate. She uses the same raw steel metal that manufacturers use to make cars. She etches the steel plate like a copper plate and then screen print the image directly onto the steel surface, similar to how traditional print making uses the copper plate to print images onto paper. Sometimes, she also digitally prints the image onto the steel. She also explores work on brushed aluminium, a medium that allows its colour and texture to illuminate the image itself.
Huang describes her steel metal works thus: “I’ve always loved textured surfaces, the aged and corroded look. My mission is to create prints that possess the quality of paintings, to blur some boundaries from prints to paintings. All my steel metal works actually has a super smooth surface although they look opposite because I sand prime the plate surface very carefully before they being printed”. (Thanks to Audrey & Olivia)
FINALIST
2018 Bald Archy Prize, Watson Arts Centre, ACT
2017 Burnie Print Prize, Burnie Regional Art Gallery, TAS
2016 Moreton Bay Regional Art Award, NSW
2015 M Collection Art Award, VIC
2015 Linden Postcard Show, VIC
2015 The Flanagan Art Prize, Ballarat
2015 Wyndham Art Prize, VIC
2015 The Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition, Edinburgh, Scotland
2014 Senini Art Award, McClelland Sculpture Park & Gallery, Langwarrin, VIC
2014 M Collection Art Award, VIC
2014 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award, WA
2014 The Flanagan Art prize, ST Patricks College, Ballarat
2014 Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Awards, VIC
2014 Alice Art Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT
2013 Burnie Print Prize, Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania
2013, 2012, 2011 The Flanagan Art Prize, ST Patricks College, Ballarat
2011 Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Art Gallery Ballarat
2011 Calleen Art Award, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, NSW
2011 Geelong Acquisitive Print Award, Geelong Gallery
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Print Council of Australia
Murray Art Museum Albury
Melbourne Grammar School
Curtin University, WA
National Art School, NSW
St Patrick's College, Ballarat
WA National Art School Sydney
AWARDS & COMMISSIONS
2016 City of Yarra public mural commission
2015 Print Council of Australia, PCA Imprint
2015 Tertiary Student Prize
2014 winner Doll House Studio Award RMIT
2013 winner Magnani Papers Student Award RMIT
2011 winner The Flanagan Art Prize, ST Patricks College, Ballarat. Her winning oil painting Kelly, 2011 is in the collection of ST Patricks College. Kelly is based on the death mask of Ned Kelly in Melbourne Gao.
Huang conceptualises a political art movement that she has termed Polipanda or Political Pop Propaganda Art. Polipanda is a hybrid practice combining political propaganda art and pop art explores how history is manipulated through mass media images and challenges us to rethink notions of authenticity and originality. Inspired by iconic images from film, photography, other cultural media and everyday life and personal experiences Huang recontextualises these images through her own lived experience of a negotiated cultural identity. Although often still recognisable, the images are unsettling, providing only a trace or imprint of their origins, their meaning altered and taking on a life of their own.
Her current work continues to satirise popular culture and political history. This work finds inspiration from Rose O’Neill’s Kewpie Doll, a character who is “a sort of little round fairy [and] whose…idea is to teach people to be merry and kind at the same time.” Huang inverts its optimism through its uncanny mischief by appropriating the ‘pie’ of kewpie. This series, which she terms as ‘Political-pie’, includes producing caricatures of notorious and influential political leaders such as Donald Trump (‘Trump-pie’), Kim Jong-Il (‘Kim-pie’) and Malcolm Turnbull (‘Malcolm-pie’). Huang’s work is playful, rebellious, humorous, yet provides unflinching and unapologetic commentary on the world of mass media images in which we live. She takes viewers on a light-hearted tour of the art world, prompting us to re-encounter our taken-for-granted experiences of ‘art’, everyday life, and popular culture.
Before Huang settled in Melbourne in 2005 she has lived and travelled in many counties throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East working as scuba diving instructor and teacher. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at RMIT in 2014.
It was during her last year of study at RMIT that Huang developed and originated her unique style of steel metal work that combines numerous traditional printmaking methods in one plate. She uses the same raw steel metal that manufacturers use to make cars. She etches the steel plate like a copper plate and then screen print the image directly onto the steel surface, similar to how traditional print making uses the copper plate to print images onto paper. Sometimes, she also digitally prints the image onto the steel. She also explores work on brushed aluminium, a medium that allows its colour and texture to illuminate the image itself.
Huang describes her steel metal works thus: “I’ve always loved textured surfaces, the aged and corroded look. My mission is to create prints that possess the quality of paintings, to blur some boundaries from prints to paintings. All my steel metal works actually has a super smooth surface although they look opposite because I sand prime the plate surface very carefully before they being printed”. (Thanks to Audrey & Olivia)
FINALIST
2018 Bald Archy Prize, Watson Arts Centre, ACT
2017 Burnie Print Prize, Burnie Regional Art Gallery, TAS
2016 Moreton Bay Regional Art Award, NSW
2015 M Collection Art Award, VIC
2015 Linden Postcard Show, VIC
2015 The Flanagan Art Prize, Ballarat
2015 Wyndham Art Prize, VIC
2015 The Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition, Edinburgh, Scotland
2014 Senini Art Award, McClelland Sculpture Park & Gallery, Langwarrin, VIC
2014 M Collection Art Award, VIC
2014 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award, WA
2014 The Flanagan Art prize, ST Patricks College, Ballarat
2014 Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Awards, VIC
2014 Alice Art Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT
2013 Burnie Print Prize, Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania
2013, 2012, 2011 The Flanagan Art Prize, ST Patricks College, Ballarat
2011 Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Art Gallery Ballarat
2011 Calleen Art Award, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, NSW
2011 Geelong Acquisitive Print Award, Geelong Gallery
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Print Council of Australia
Murray Art Museum Albury
Melbourne Grammar School
Curtin University, WA
National Art School, NSW
St Patrick's College, Ballarat
WA National Art School Sydney
AWARDS & COMMISSIONS
2016 City of Yarra public mural commission
2015 Print Council of Australia, PCA Imprint
2015 Tertiary Student Prize
2014 winner Doll House Studio Award RMIT
2013 winner Magnani Papers Student Award RMIT
2011 winner The Flanagan Art Prize, ST Patricks College, Ballarat. Her winning oil painting Kelly, 2011 is in the collection of ST Patricks College. Kelly is based on the death mask of Ned Kelly in Melbourne Gao.
