Journey- Solo Exhibition of Christopher Cheung

JOURNEY

I once read a line about painting. Roughly, it likens its creation process to taking a journey. What a solitary journey ! Especially in this era of instant images , when one can flip through thousands of pictures with just a simple clic of a finger ... It makes me think that a finished painting can be compared to a terminal but not a final destination.  Or to push the metaphore further , a finished painting is a vehicle pausing at a station.

I am impatient by nature. The skill of my hands can never match the swiftness of my thoughts , the making of a painting can never catch up with the sparkling visual fantasy in my mind . Thus whenever I get a flash of an idea, there is an impulse to catch & nail it down immediately on the canvas . To remedy this brain & hand « jetlag » , I have a habit of working on several paintings at the same time .

Anything goes as far as my choice of subject for a painting is concerned. When I feel moved by a visible or even invisible character, object or event , as long as it can be expressed by colors & lines , it could all become a potential painting for me . The pendulum working rhythm with more than one painting at a time can have a cross-pollination effet, and can often give birth to a new journey, become blueprint for a new work .

A large proportion of paintings in this show are of myself and of my family members . One reason being that it is handy to have the raw material easily accessible , and who else but myself and those closest to me could tolerate my demanding manipulation for poses? The main reason is that in recent years , I feel a pressing and urgent need for exploration and examination of my whole being , inside out .

Thus,  for myself , this exhibition would be the vehicle stopping at the terminal waiting for another journey ; and hopefully, for the viewer, it could become a map that might inspire journeys to many other destinations .

Translation : Mary Stephen