Introducing a covey of pink ceramic pigs, artist Thomas Müller continues his exploration of the physicality of language with his second exhibition in the gallery, What then pig.

The diminutive pink pigs appear to attack and struggle with punctuation, letterforms, and other linguistic characters and symbols. In this barnyard of anthropomorphized animals, the pigs are a metaphoric understudy for human chaos: gifted with intellect, reason, and feeling, yet bound to reckless impulses of greed, desire, and force. It’s unclear whether the pale pink pigs are victims of or complicit in their own infirmity.

Thomas Müller is Associate Professor and Chair of Art, 3D, at the University of Southern California (USC). He received his BFA from the University of Washington and MFA at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa and spent his childhood growing up in Africa, the United States and Europe. Growing up in such disparate locales and cultures has inevitably influenced his work, in particular as it relates to language, time, memory and space. Residencies include The European Ceramic Work Centres’ Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands and Stichtung Kaus Australis Rotterdam, The Netherlands.