Metamorphosis, number 15, original oil painting by Tang Hai Guo
In Tang's metamorphosis series, he is pointing to the changes that people undergo because of materialism and greed, which are big problems in modern Chinese society. Just like a hanger will change its shape when too much weight is hung on it, people will change with the stress that the current society puts on them to earn enough money to live like normal people, in the rest of the world.
Having gone through the hardships of the great famine of half a century ago and the ravages of the cultural revolution of Mao, the society has been left with collective fear of not having enough and the envy of those who have accumulated so much since those times. Those things have caused greed to run rampant, but greed changes a person on both the inside and the outside.
