Amy Cheng (visual artist)

Last updated

Amy Cheng
2024-09-08 Amy Cheng visual artist.jpg
Amy Cheng
Born
Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
NationalityChinese American
EducationBFA – University of Texas at Austin, 1978; MFA – Hunter College City University of New York 1982
Website https://www.amychengstudio.com

Amy Cheng (born December 8, 1956) is an American artist with a dual career in studio art and 2-dimensional public art fabricated in a variety of materials, such as mosaic, laminated glass, tiles, and terrazzo. [1] Cheng's work is characterized by its complexity. Using the dichotomies of light and dark, soft and hard edge, and contrast of micro and macro she invents a world that is at once, inside us all and the universe we inhabit. Her intricate compositions are built with carefully layered geometries in a vibrant palette of perfectly synthesized layered patterns. Using a veil-like film or hatching, cross-hatching, lace, dots and overlaid patterns she frames poetic visual narratives that explore the cosmos and all that it is made of. [2]

Contents

Life and career

Amy Cheng was born in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. Her family immigrated to Brazil in 1961, first to Sapucaia, a village in Rio Grande do Sul, then to São Paulo, S.P. In 1967 her family moved from Brazil to Oklahoma City, OK, and, in 1969 to Dallas, TX. [3] [2] She received a BFA in Painting from the University Texas at Austin (1978) and an M.F.A. in Painting from Hunter College, City University of New York (1982). Cheng lived in New York City from 1978 to 1989 when she moved to Tivoli in New York's Mid-Hudson Valley, and in 1997 to New Paltz, NY. In 2019, she moved back to New York City. In 2020 she retired from teaching. She lives in New York City and maintains a studio in the South Bronx.

Mature work

In 2019, on a sabbatical, Cheng spent three months as Artist-in-Residence at the Carter Burden Covello Center [4] in Manhattan. By the close of her stay Cheng had moved away from making large oil paintings on canvas to making small gouache and oil marker paintings. Cheng moved into a series of geometric abstractions that explored deeper layered space while retaining the pattern and repetition she has used consistently throughout her painting career. At the new reduced scale, the fine marker line hatching, and crosshatching turned the patterning and repetition into a sense of texture. These artworks are characterized by intricacy, layering, referential abstraction, geometry, dynamic space, pattern and repetition. In 2023 Cheng began to invent a visual vocabulary to paint imaginative visual speculations on the mysteries of the universe at the macro and micro levels. Cheng overtly, if playfully, references contemporary concepts of astrophysics and quantum mechanics. [5]

Prior to this, in 2009, Cheng spent six months on a Fulbright Senior Lecture/Research grant as a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Painting Program of São Paulo University, S.P., Brazil returned to Brazil. This was the first time she returned to Brazil since she leaving as a child. [6] She proposed to study Brazilian folk art, but found herself more drawn to the tropical Brazilian flora. [7] When she returned to the U.S. she took an unpaid leave from teaching to work as an Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for the Arts in Charlotte, NC. [8] It was at the Center that Cheng began a series of paintings that led directly to the Mandala Series that occupied her for the decade of the 2010’s. [3] The Mandala oil paintings ranging from 30 x 30-in to 62 x 90-in with a base composition of two overlapping spheres or, more often, a central sphere symmetrically overlapping two touching spheres. [9] The poet Mark Sullivan wrote in a catalog essay that “[Cheng] immersed herself in the ethic of a nearly impersonal and meditative form of creation … the paintings’ decorative forms […] accentuate the sensation that we are gazing at vibrant imaginary worlds, almost visionary in their flashes of chromatic patterning.” [10]

Early work

In the mid-1980s, starting with a single pear in a painted frame, Cheng began work on a series of monumental fruit paintings that lasted a decade. [11] [3] [12] In 1987 one of the framed pear paintings was included in a group exhibition titled "Singular Objects" at Art in General in New York City. The show was reviewed by Ellen Handy in Arts Magazine. Cheng's painting, "Medieval Pear" was singled out by Handy, for notice. [13] In 1989 Cheng was included in "Radiant Fruit: Iconic Still Life" curated by Suzaan Boettger at Trabia Gallery in New York City. The monumental fruit paintings come across more as portraits than still life, a quality Cheng attributes to her Asian sensibility. The Chinese do not present fruits as comestibles on a table; rather they carry symbolic meaning that refers back to nature. [14]

By 1988 Cheng's paintings had moved beyond single fruits to clusters of monumental fruits set in a landscape space. [15] [16] Cheng had her first solo exhibition at The Harrison Gallery, Boca Raton, FL in 1991, and her first solo exhibition in New York City at the C&A Gallery in Soho in 1992. The repetition, patterning, and ornamentation that had until then been relegated to the painted frames that enclosed the single pears were fully overlapping the fruits themselves by the mid-1990s; the patterns were either painted or silk-screened on, and eventually became more pronounced than the underlying fruit. [12]

Amy Cheng, A Moment in Space and time, 12 x 22.5 inches, gouache and oil marker on paper, 2024 Cheng A Moment in Space and time.jpg
Amy Cheng, A Moment in Space and time, 12 x 22.5 inches, gouache and oil marker on paper, 2024

In 1997 Cheng moved in a new direction, producing a body of work that introduced a new abstract, if referential, vocabulary of geometry, layering, complexity, and cosmic or skyscapes. [3] Abstraction allowed Cheng to take full advantage of her love of pattern, repetition, and ornamentation. [17] In 1996 she curated a group show of work by Asian American artists at the Eighth Floor Gallery in Soho called Repetition Compulsion, based on what she saw as their common reliance on and use of patterning in their work. [18] The new series of paintings referenced the cosmos.

Two books, Alchemy and Mysticism by Alexander Roob and a paperback on Chinese Folk Art [17] became sources for a series of paintings spanning the 2000s that addressed Cheng's interest in the mysticism that engendered by alchemical notions in the West, and the prevalent beliefs and superstitions that held such strong, long-term sway in China. [17]

Exhibitions

Cheng has had solo exhibitions at the Plattsburgh State Art Museum, [19] the Turchin Center for Visual Arts, [20] the Voelker Orth Museum, Tower Fine Art Gallery, SUNY at Brockport, The Marist College Art Gallery, NYC's Equity Gallery, and more. She has been in group exhibitions at Amy Simon Fine Art Gallery, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Jersey State Museum, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Mary Tomás Gallery, William Havu Gallery, and others.

Public commissions

Cheng has 20 years of experience working in public art. She has consistently used a visual vocabulary that includes layers, geometry, pattern, repetition, and ornamentation. The public projects at times include figuration or representation, but they are mostly abstract but referential. The impact of her work comes from the color, use of materials, ornamentation, use of patterning and repetition, elegance, a balance of stillness and movement, and an energetic sense of joy. Many of her commissions are sited at public transport hubs such as airports, subways, bus terminals, bus or streetcar shelters. She has an interest in large, timeless and essential, sometimes cosmic themes. Her award winning projects embrace a variety of media and include:

Cheng Window D Northbound North (7704404598) Cheng Window D Northbound North (7704404598).jpg
Cheng Window D Northbound North (7704404598)

Fellowships and awards

Academic work

Cheng is a Professor Emerita of the Art Department, State University of New York at New Paltz. She was a Full Professor from 2004–2020, Associate Professor from 1999–2004, Assistant Professor from 1997–1999. [46] Cheng was an Assistant Professor at Bard College, 1989–1997, a Lecturer in the Visual Arts Program, Princeton University in 1989.  

In 2017 after returning from her Fulbright semester in China, Cheng contributed a chapter, "Learning to See: A Fulbright Semester Teaching Painting in Beijing," pp. to NARRATIVE INQUIRIES FROM FULBRIGHT LECTURERS IN CHINA: Cross-Cultural Connections in Higher Education, published by Routledge. [47]

In 1999 Cheng co-chaired with Patricia Phillips, then Dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts, SUNY New Paltz an ARTS NOW Conference on art and audience titled "ooh, ah…oh! Art Audience Response." [48]

Selected Collections

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State University of New York at New Paltz</span> Public university in New Paltz, New York

The State University of New York at New Paltz is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It traces its origins to the New Paltz Classical School, a secondary institution founded in 1828 and reorganized as an academy in 1833.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Mehretu</span> American contemporary visual artist (born 1970)

Julie Mehretu is an Ethiopian American contemporary visual artist, known for her multi-layered paintings of abstracted landscapes on a large scale. Her paintings, drawings, and prints depict the cumulative effects of urban sociopolitical changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Sillman</span> American painter

Amy Sillman is a New York-based visual artist, known for process-based paintings that move between abstraction and figuration, and engage nontraditional media including animation, zines and installation. Her work draws upon art historical tropes, particularly postwar American gestural painting, as both influences and foils; she engages feminist critiques of the discourses of mastery, genius and power in order to introduce qualities such as humor, awkwardness, self-deprecation, affect and doubt into her practice. Profiles in The New York Times, ARTnews, Frieze, and Interview, characterize Sillman as championing "the relevance of painting" and "a reinvigorated mode of abstraction reclaiming the potency of active brushwork and visible gestures." Critic Phyllis Tuchman described Sillman as "an inventive abstractionist" whose "messy, multivalent, lively" art "reframes long-held notions regarding the look and emotional character of abstraction."

Virginia Patrone is an Uruguayan visual artist who worked in Uruguay before moving to Spain in 2003.

Robert William Ebendorf is an American metalsmith and jeweler, known for craft, art and studio jewelry, often using found objects. In 2003–2004, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized an exhibition of 95 pieces, titled The Jewelry of Robert Ebendorf: A Retrospective of Forty Years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana al-Hadid</span> American artist

Diana al-Hadid is a Syrian-born American contemporary artist who creates sculptures, installations, and drawings using various media. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is represented by Kasmin Gallery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethel Magafan</span> American painter and muralist

Ethel Magafan was an American painter and muralist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esther Mahlangu</span> South African artist

Esther Mahlangu is a South African artist. She is known for her bold large-scale contemporary paintings that reference her Ndebele heritage. She is one of South Africa's best known artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Takenaga</span> American painter

Barbara Takenaga is an American artist known for swirling, abstract paintings that have been described as psychedelic and cosmic, as well as scientific, due to their highly detailed, obsessive patterning. She gained wide recognition in the 2000s, as critics such as David Cohen and Kenneth Baker placed her among a leading edge of artists renewing abstraction with paintings that emphasized visual beauty and excess, meticulous technique, and optical effects. Her work suggests possibilities that range from imagined landscapes and aerial maps to astronomical and meteorological phenomena to microscopic views of cells, aquatic creatures or mineral cross-sections. In a 2018 review, The New Yorker described Takenaga as "an abstractionist with a mystic’s interest in how the ecstatic can emerge from the laborious."

Rosemarie Beck was an American abstract expressionist, figurative expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She was married to the writer and editor Robert Phelps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathy Goodell</span>

Kathy Goodell, is an American contemporary artist and educator, who works in sculptural objects, installation, drawing, and photography. She is a professor of painting and drawing at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Rosen (painter)</span> American painter

Charles Rosen was an American painter who lived for many years in Woodstock, New York. In the 1910s he was acclaimed for his Impressionist winter landscapes. He became dissatisfied with this style and around 1920 he changed to a radically different cubist-realist (Precisionism) style. He became recognized as one of the leaders of the Woodstock artists colony.

Elisa Pritzker is an Argentine-American artist working in a variety of two- and three-dimensional art media.

Jamie Bennett is an American artist and educator known for his enamel jewelry. Over his forty-year career, Bennett has experimented with the centuries-old process of enameling, discovered new techniques of setting, and created new colors of enamel and a matte surfaces. This has led him to be referred to as “one of the most innovative and accomplished enamellers of our time” by Ursula Ilse-Neuman, historian and former curator at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. Bennett is closely associated with the State University of New York at New Paltz, where he studied himself as a student, and taught in the Metal department for many years. Bennett retired from teaching in 2014, after thirty years at SUNY New Paltz.

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray is an American metalsmith, artist, critic, and educator living and working in Stone Ridge, New York. Mimlitsch-Gray's work has been shown nationally at such venues as the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Museum of the City of New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Museum of Arts and Design. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Stadtisches Museum Gottingen, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is held in public and private collections in the U.S, Europe, and Asia.

Amy Ellingson is an American contemporary abstract painter. She is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomashi Jackson</span> American artist

Tomashi Jackson is an American multimedia artist working across painting, video, textiles and sculpture. Jackson was born in Houston, Texas, raised in Los Angeles, and currently lives and works in New York, NY and Cambridge, MA. Jackson was named a 2019 Whitney Biennial participating artist. Jackson also serves on the faculty for sculpture at Rhode Island School of Design. Her work is included in the collection of MOCA Los Angeles. In 2004, a 20-foot-high by 80-foot-long mural by Jackson entitled Evolution of a Community was unveiled in the Los Angeles neighborhood of West Adams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Zlamany</span> American painter and portraitist (born 1959)

Brenda Zlamany is an American artist best known for portraiture that combines Old Master technique with a postmodern conceptual approach. She gained attention beginning in the 1990s, when critics such as Artforum's Barry Schwabsky, Donald Kuspit and John Yau identified her among a small group of figurative painters reviving the neglected legacies of portraiture and classical technique by introducing confrontational subject matter, psychological insight and social critique. Her early portraits of well-known male artists, such as Chuck Close and Leon Golub, reversed conventional artist/sitter gender and power dynamics; her later projects upend the traditionally "heroic" nature of portraiture by featuring underrepresented groups and everyday people.

Marco DaSilva is Brazilian-American multimedia artist, primary working in painting and drawing. His work integrates a personal symbology amidst explorations of his multi-racial, queer and manic experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Leroy Wigfall</span> American artist (1930-2017

Benjamin Leroy Wigfall (1930–2017) was an American abstract-expressionist painter, printmaker, teacher, gallery owner, and collector of African art. He was the founder of a community art space called Communications Village as a hub for residents in a Black neighborhood in Kingston, New York. At the age of 20, he was the youngest artist ever to have a painting purchased by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

References

  1. "Two New Murals Greet Passengers and Visitors at Lambert". stlouis-mo.gov. January 31, 2014. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  2. 1 2 Gallo, Barbara (January 22, 2006). "Portrait of the Artist: Layer upon layer of paint builds surprises". Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. E5.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "WTP Artist: Amy Cheng – The Woven Tale Press". October 17, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  4. "Carter Burden Network". Carter Burden Network. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
  5. "Perspective: Six Artists". Spencertown Academy. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
  6. 1 2 "Amy Cheng". Fulbright.org. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  7. Marston Reid, Linda (June 7, 2013). "Art From Here: Pattern Organic' begins 14th collaborative series". Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. e4–e6.
  8. "McColl Center". mccollcenter.org. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  9. Gallo Farrell, Barbara (January 22, 2006). "Portrait of the Artist: Layer upon layer of paint builds surprises". Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. E5.
  10. Sullivan, Mark (2014). Amy Cheng: Irrational Exuberance (PDF). Brockport, NY: SUNY Brockport, Tower Fine Arts Gallery, State University of NY at Brockport. pp. 4–9.
  11. Vellucci, Michelle (January 14, 2000). "Food inspires artists in group exhibition". The Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. 1F.
  12. 1 2 Zevitas, Steven (1996). New American Paintings: An Exhibition of the Winners' Works, Open Studios' Second Mid-Atlantic Competition (2 ed.). Wellesley, MA: Open Studio Press. ISBN   1-883039-07X.
  13. Handy, Ellen (November 1987). "Singular Visions at Art in General". Arts Magazine. 62 (3): 108.
  14. "Chinese Flower and Fruit symbolism". www.chinasage.info. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  15. Wilson Jacobson, Sebby (November 30, 1989). "Even now, romance lives: Contemporary landscapes lack cynicism, but not humor". Rochester Times Union.
  16. Netsky., Ron (November 12, 1989). "A romance with the landscape: Genre of past still excites today's artist". Sunday Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, NY.
  17. 1 2 3 Carroll, Michelle (May 1, 2001). "Work by valley artists featured at Marist gallery". Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. 1D.
  18. "Barbara Takenaga Resumé". Barbara Takenaga. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  19. Caudell, Robin (January 28, 2015). "Out & About: Inhalations and exhalations of mandalas". PRESS-REPUBLICAN.
  20. "Amy Cheng: Evidence of Things Unseen". Appalachian State University. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  21. Heartney, Eleanor (1981). City Art: New York's Percent for Art Program. London: Merrell. p. 180. ISBN   1-85894-290-X.
  22. "Port of Seattle (SeaTac)". seatac.stqry.app. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  23. "Missing Train, Catching Art". The New York Sun. April 16, 2007. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  24. "Las Flores in Brooklyn, NY". Public Art Archive. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  25. Bloodworth, Sandra; Ayres, William; Tucci, Stanley (2006). Along the Way: MTA Arts for Transit. New York: Monacelli Press. p. 204. ISBN   978-1-58093-173-1.
  26. Elevated: Art and Architecture of the Chicago Transit Authority. Chicago Transit Authority. 2018. pp. 62–67. ISBN   978-0-692-09958-2.
  27. "Chicago Transit Authority", Wikipedia, August 19, 2024, retrieved September 6, 2024
  28. "Rediscovery". MTA. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  29. "Two New Murals Greet Passengers and Visitors at Lambert". stlouis-mo.gov. January 31, 2014. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  30. "Jacksonville International Airport". www.flyjacksonville.com. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  31. "Artwork". ArtsWA. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  32. "Magazines". CODAworx. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  33. Whalen, Cecilia (October 1, 2021). "The Story Behind the Shelter Art Along the New CATS Gold Line". Queen City Nerve. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  34. "Worlds within Worlds – CODAworx". www.codaworx.com. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  35. 1 2 Kraus, Sally (2024). The Economic Power of Public Art: Data and insights on the size and scope of the public art industry & how it drives community engagement and economic growth. Toni Sikes. p. 75.
  36. "Magazines". CODAworx. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  37. "In Our Own Backyard". Boise Arts & History. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  38. "Beyond the Biosphere – Art". September 4, 2024. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  39. "Past Recipients". FST StudioProjects Fund. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  40. "About". FST StudioProjects Fund. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  41. "Renmin University". Fulbright Scholar Program. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  42. "Fulbright Scholars". SUNY New Paltz. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  43. "Professors awarded Fulbright Scholar awards to lecture in Brazil and Macedonia – SUNY New Paltz News". November 19, 2008. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  44. "Amy I. Cheng". ACLS. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  45. 1 2 "Series VI. Fellowship Program: New York Foundation For the Arts (NYFA) Records: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids". findingaids.library.nyu.edu. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  46. "Suny New Paltz Art Department amy cheng – Google Search". www.google.com. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  47. Freedom, Shin; Munday, Pat; Cockroft, Jeanette (2019). NARRATIVE INQUIRIES FROM FULBRIGHT LECTURERS IN CHINA; Cross-Cultural Connections in Higher Education. New York: Routledge. pp. 57–67. ISBN   978-1138-32083-3.
  48. Vellucci, Michelle (September 27, 1999). "ARTS NOW CONFERENCE: Talent to converse on SUNY". Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. 1D.

official website

PUBLIC ART

Nature Provides - ArtsWA

Rediscovery - MTA Arts & Design

Las Flores - MTA Arts & Design

In Memory of My Father - Sea-Tac Airport

Nucleic Life Formation - Lambert-St. Louis Airport MetroLink Station