Neighbor News
Feast Your Eyes This Lunar New Year
Chinese food and firecrackers are not the only way to celebrate the Lunar New Year this February.
Feast your eyes this Lunar New Year on the vibrant and colorful artworks of Duk Soon Fwhang at the Monmouth County Library in Shrewsbury.
Classically trained in painting in her native Korea, Duk Soon Fwhang was born into a family of artists and inventors. She and her sister Chung Soon Fwhang, a fellow painter, managed their own art studios since the 1950s, when they first opened Pocahantas Sisters Art Shop in Korea during the war. Then they painted the portraits of whatever photo a GI had in his wallet, typically his girlfriend or his mother. After the war, the sisters came to the United States to pursue fine arts in the Big Apple.
Duk Soon attended the Art Students League and worked as a portraitist and illustrator for magazines, books, and websites. She collaborates with Father Victor Hoagland, of Saint Mary’s parish in Colts Neck, to create modern inspirational works for the Catholic missions, such as portraits of Mother Teresa and Pope Francis.
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Whether she is working in pastels, oils, watercolor, or acrylic, Duk Soon Fwhang’s paintings span a wide range of subjects from still life and landscapes to portraits of everyday folk, as well as mythical and biblical heroes. Captivating are her renderings of all sorts of creatures great and small–birds, fish, frogs, insects, cats, and dogs.
Children and adults will delight as well in her modern renditions of the origami (paper folding) tradition. She sculpts out of recycled paper delicate and intricate mobiles and Asian dolls. The show is free and open to the public at the Shrewsbury branch of the Monmouth County Library from February 1 to February 28, 2016.
