“Life is to be enjoyed,” painter Peggy King insists on her website. And we certainly enjoy her series of oil paintings Wine Monkeys, which shows primates of different breeds smiling, lolling, clutching, and serving their favorite vintages. Some sport accessories — a cigar, a pool cue. Some are shown grinning, one (a proboscis monkey) looks exceptionally dignified, and another clutch of baby monkeys appears quite possessive of their tall glass bottle. A variation on the theme is King’s “Monkeys in the Kitchen,” a painting commissioned by a client in Canada as a Christmas gift for her son. “Her son and his family were in Costa Rica on vacation,” King recounts. “They had an open-air kitchen, and five Capuchin monkeys would come to their kitchen and steal food. They stole granola bars and eggs.” The client sent King a video for reference, “[where the monkeys were] jumping all around,” says the artist. “So I decided to have them in the fridge and hanging from the ceiling fan. They are very mischievous creatures.” Here’s hoping your Thanksgiving table this month has a bit of the Capuchin spirit.
— Ed.
Peggy King is represented by Red House Studios and Gallery (310 West State St., Black Mountain, svfalarts.org) and by Mountain Nest Gallery (133 Cherry St., Black Mountain, mtnnest.com). For more information, see peggykingart.com.