Saturday, May 23, 2009

Shiny Happy People

The other week while we were walking throuh SOHO, we saw a familiar artist's work through the doorway of the True Dharma Monastery store.

Incredibly, the sales person at this store had no knowledge of this artist's name despite the fact that two of the store's walls were covered with this artist's paintings. We then inquired about the price of each piece; they ranged from $300-$500, and this price range was for the reproductions. She said apparently the originals cost upwards of $100,000 to $200,00. We, of course, can't even afford the reproductions but let's say we were going to drop $400 on one of these, we would damn well want to know who this artist is so we can find out the meanings behind these curiously odd paintings that we can't get enough of. Behind these overly exaggerated happy faces, is there a political meaning or social context we should know about? For now, all we can do is smile when we see these shiny happy people paintings.

How YOU 'doing?