Apparatus - Ching Ching Cheng

Hatheway Curatorial is pleased to present “Apparatus” a selection of recent works by Ching Ching Cheng. The show will be on view at Barbara’s at the Brewery from June 9 through August 4, 2012.

Cheng has been interested in science and engineering since she was little. Every summer break during junior high school she would visit and help out at her father’s factory in Taiwan. Hanging out at the factory is one of her fondest childhood memories. Cheng found that she couldn’t stop watching and trying to figure out how the giant mechanical factory devices worked. Every part of each machine connected to another massive machine, moving and working smoothly together, just like a human body.

While studying the human form in school, Cheng came see it as an incredible machine. Similar to the wonder that her father’s machines made her feel as a child, the body came to fascinate her. Specific parts of the human form such as organs, the brain, and the way bodies perceive the world around them became the focus of her work.

In Cheng’s world, the brain is a cognitive camera, and each blink of the eye captures a fragment of a memory. Old books carry with them a history of not only the information within them but also the trajectory of where the book has been. By gluing each page of a book together in order to form a carvable foundation for her sculptures, Cheng has secured the memories collected in the history of the book. Similarly, Cheng’s paintings of car engines are organic representations of blood vessels, fluids and movements, blurring the line between man and machine.

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