Su Su

Kindly donated by the artist and Kavi Gupta

Three Little Pigs (Teacup Piggy) is an oil painting by Chinese-born, Pittsburgh-based artist Su Su, whose masterful technique results in fantastical, dreamlike images that offer a unique perspective on intercultural exchange.

Su Su created this painting for a group show at Carnegie Museum of Art in 2020. The exhibition examined the relationship between humanity and the ecosystem. Su Su thought about the children’s story of The Three Little Pigs, and how the pigs struggled to adapt the changing conditions of their environment. The Big Bad Wolf was constantly trying to tempt the pigs into dangerous situations, while the pigs had to find the right balance between their desires, their fears, and their survival. For this painting, Su Su made the pig tiny—a teacup pig, similar to a teacup dog, which exists more as an object to own, or as a pretty thing that’s superficial, rather than a fully realized being. Su Su’s painting not only reduces the pig to a miniaturized version of itself, it also flattens the flowers and a cat to the same decorative appearance as the crocheted lace elements in the painting. Says Su Su, “It’s unnatural and artificial, and evil in a way. We’re empowered as humans to be the dominant creature in our environment. Our eyes pay very little attention to animals and nature. We see the natural world as imagery, not as something real, similar to how we see patterns, as something decorative that we own.

Su Su’s works speak to the complicated and confusing experiences she has had as an immigrant to the United States. The distorted, swirling world of liquified iconographies melting together with Su Su’s face and body reflects her struggle with the misunderstandings that shape the way China and the United States understand and portray each other’s cultures. Her paintings bring together symbolic references, historical cues, and tidbits borrowed from mass media and pop culture to create a jittery, beautiful hybrid image with the capacity to reshape our understanding of our interconnected world.

Symbols like deer, pigs, and cats have running currents in both Eastern and Western art, these kinds of animals (along with other symbols) fertile ground for fables around the world. Contrasting different styles of how these symbols have manifested through time and across cultures are blurred through complex, meticulously rendered distortions resembling rippling water, warped reflections, and digital glitches.

Recent exhibitions of Su Su's work include Chautauqua Institution of Art, NY (2019); The Andy Warhol Museum 25th anniversary exhibition (2019); The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (2020); The Carnegie Museum of Art (2020); the Muskegon Museum of Art (2021); and the de la Cruz Collection (2021). Works by Su Su are held in the permanent collections of de la Cruz Collection, Miami, FL; The Bennett Prize Art Collection, Muskegon, MI; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and The International Spy Museum, Washington, DC, among others.