Andrew Thomas Huang

Born 1984 in Los Angeles, USA
Lives and works in California, USA

White Bay Power Station

The Beast of Jade Mountain: Queen Mother of the West (西王母), 2023–2024
polymer, steel, automotive paint

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from Terra Foundation for American Art. Courtesy the artist.

3D design by Angus Mills.

In ancient Chinese myth, five tigers hold the balance of cosmic forces, embody the power of sun and fire, adorn the armour of the empire’s most brutal generals, fill the nightmares of children and guard the skies of the west. As a Chinese zodiac sign, the tiger symbolises nobility and fearlessness, existing in the space between the divine, the animal and the human. Innately fluid, they move through history and mythology as spirit, force of nature, creature and warrior all at once. For American Chinese artist Andrew Thomas Huang, who understands queerness as the transgression of boundaries, the tiger is a symbol of liberation.

A film director by trade, Huang’s career to date reflects his own sexual and cultural hybridity, combining live action and visual effects to create characters that straddle multiple worlds and what he refers to as ‘queer morphologies’. Each avatar complicates not only the boundaries between male and female, but between the human and the non-human, the real and the imagined.

Here Xiwangmu (西王母), Queen Mother of the West in Chinese mythology and archetype of the ancient divine feminine, is neither goddess, monster or myth, but tiger. Crowned with her messenger birds, qingniao (青鳥), she dons the compassionate face of a bodhisattva, masking the beast within.

As the saying goes, the lion may be the ruler of the jungle, the dragon of rivers and seas, but the tiger is lord of beasts – of the wild, untameable and immutable. Presented on a massive scale in Huang’s first ever sculptural work, the tiger goddess is a maker of worlds, her immense eyes wide open to watch the sun rise over the centuries.

Andrew Thomas Huang is a visual artist, writer and director who crafts hybrid fantasy worlds and mythical dreamscapes. Known for his Grammy nominated music videos of Björk, FKA twigs and Thom Yorke, Huang is also recognised as a writer and director of narrative film. Inspired by his queer Chinese heritage, Huang’s work mines the unconscious realms to blend technology, mysticism, future folklore and queer spirituality.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.