Dorothy Tang: Star Wars adidas, BatBaby and Bowie
Hong Kong artist Dorothy Tang is infamous for quite a few pop culture interpretations, done firmly in the vein of retro-styled proganada-takes on warped chinese traditions with a firm focus on chubby baby characters - and I am again reminded of her work with the above STAR WARS imagery done for the launch of adidas Originals, which proceeded her work on these dolls (shown below) as well for adidas, done in 2008-09 (via).
I would have clamored for a toy-figurine to be made by her but in actual fact her prominence in pop history developed from the release of her 'BatBaby' 10" tall figurine released in 2009, along with Batbaby illustrations, which evoked old-school movie posters for me (instead of comicbook covers, surprisingly). The style is so kitschy-cliched but nobody in this mainstream seems to do it better than her, so Dorothy reins supreme thus far!
Currently represented by MADHOUSE in Hong Kong, I wonder what she is up to these days? Besides the Bowie-Baby shown, and the last time I saw her work was for a Astronuat-sculpt for 3A Gathering in 2010. Stay tuned to the MADHOUSE-blog for updates, I reckon.
