Gordon Cheung

 

Gordon Cheung's work interrogates the levers of power that govern our understanding of the world, and the role that visual culture plays within the construction of history. With focus on the transforming socioeconomic relationship between east and west, he questions the effects of global capitalism and reflects on the potency of historical narratives. 

 

Cheung’s oeuvre is populated by disparate cultural symbols drawn from cartography, political propaganda, anonymous internet imagery and art history. Imagery itself is Cheung’s primary material, either co-opted in the creation of multimedia paintings or manipulated via digital algorithms. His recent paintings depict aerial perspectives of real and part prophetic landscapes, often relating to sites in China comprising the largest infrastructural project in human history. The sprawling cityscapes are rendered from satellite imagery, built up as reliefs on the canvas in hardened sand and pigment. The scenes’ relationship with reality is destabilised by the overall compositions, which feature floating cities below glimmering constellations that mark out future geopolitical orders.

 

Gordon Cheung (b. 1975) graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1998, completing an MA at the Royal College of Art in 2001. Selected solo exhibitions include The Garden of Perfect Brightness, The Atkinson, Southport, UK (2023); Gordon Cheung, Almine Rech, Paris, France (2022); Tears of Paradise, Edel Assanti, London, UK (2020); Cross Pollination, The Atkinson, Southport, UK (2019); Home, Galerie Huit, Hong Kong (2018); New Order Vanitas, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, Florida, USA (2017); Gordon Cheung, The Whitaker, Rossendale, UK (2017); Here be Dragons, Nottingham Castle Museum, Nottingham, UK (2016); Lines in the Sand, Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2016); Altered States, Arizona State University Art Museum, Arizona, USA (2010); The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, UK (2009) and The Promised Land at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, USA (2009). Group exhibitions include A Gateway to Possible Worlds, Art and Science Fiction, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Lorraine, France (2022); Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool, UK (2020); 2219: Futures Imagined, Artscience Museum, Singapore (2019); Turkish Tulips, Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, Netherlands; travelling to the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, UK and Horniman Museum, London, UK (2017). Cheung’s work features in numerous public collections worldwide, including Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA; Arizona State University Art Museum, Arizona, USA; The British Museum, London, UK; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, USA; Hood Museum of Art, New Hampshire, USA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, USA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Speed Art Museum, Kentucky, USA; The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK and The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA. Gordon Cheung lives and works in London.