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Gordon Cheung
Born to Chinese parents and raised in the urban environment of London, Cheung’s works traverse cultures, juxtaposing images, symbols and ideas from a diverse range of sources: news and popular media, video games, graffiti, architecture and historical paintings. Rather than focus on the original ideas presented in these sources, Cheung repurposes these images to highlight contemporary issues such as ecological destruction and capitalism and consumerism gone awry. At the same time, his works include motifs found throughout his prior work: oceans of numbers and financial data, and the bold use of color balanced alongside familiar contemporary images.
“I wasn’t choosing these [sources] consciously due to their historical significance,” says Cheung, referencing some of the more recognizable paintings he’s drawn from, “but rather responding to the ideas in the works that I felt were relevant to contemporary times and the themes that underlie all my work.”
Cheung’s work combines collage, Japanese ink brushwork, photographic transfers, oil and spray paint on top of stock listings from the distinctively pink London Financial Times; the contrast of his fantastical landscapes with streams of numbers seem harbingers of recent financial crises around the world.