I found and was intrigued by Gordon Cheung's mixed media art through the Psychedelic catalog for the upcoming Psychedelic show at the MAG. Cheung lives and works in London. In most of his art work Cheung uses the stock listings or financial sections of newsprint. He layers acrylic gel and spray paint to formulate his images from the print, all of which is fixed on canvas. 
Cheung's work is visually stunning and, paired with its intelligent presentation, his works makes a strong statement concerning societal chaos. I an drawn to how the colors seem to melt off of the pages, while the overwhelming multitude of stock listings and financial trading numbers remains. In most of his work, the stock listings are there only as backdrop, but their presence not only changes the attitude of the work: the drab and undersaturated look it creates changes the overall mood of the work. 
Cheung's work varies from desolate landscape scenes to portraits of people and animals. His work remains focused around the idea of the apocalypse both post and prior. Cheung's work is an extensive body of work. On one side, the viewer is treated to the post-apocalypse through mural-like images that do not seem far from images visible in newspapers daily. On the other, Cheung presents pre-apocalypse through his use of images depicting those elements that have the power to lead to the apocalypse. For example Cheung is fascinated with religious symbolism, and cultural facts that can be seen as evidence of extremism in society. With the latter, images that depict famous celebrities and billionaires, embellish how important these people are on society. It is as if Cheung is saying that such a small group of the 7 Billion people of earth own a large majority of all wealth on earth. Certainly paired alongside stock listings, this comparison becomes stronger.
For my own work, I was fascinated by how realistic Cheung's pieces seemed to be. At the very least, I saw in Cheung's works a depiction of the world as is possible through continuous societal decay and insensitivity. I am inspired by his work to try to make my work stronger by merging edginess without being blatantly crude. Though his work is not too similar technically to my process, conceptually I share with Cheung a strong interest in the ideas of ruin and disaster and how it pertains to our surrounding comfort bubbles.
All Photographs courtesy of Gordon Cheung
No comments:
Post a Comment