Ching Ho Cheng

Ching ho Cheng (December 1946-May 1989) was an artist who lived and worked in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s.

Life and work

An American of Chinese descent, Ching Ho Cheng was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1946.^[1] Ching was the son of Chiang Kai-shek's last ambassador to Cuba. During the mid-1960s he studied painting at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City, and during the early seventies lived in Paris and Amsterdam, where, in 1976, he had his first one-man show. Cheng returned to New York that same year and checked into the Chelsea Hotel intending to remain for two months; he lived and worked there until his death in May 1989.

Ching Ho Cheng created artwork from torn paper. To create these variously scaled abstract pieces, Cheng applied iron powder to torn paper which was sealed with waterproof layers of gesso, mat medium and modelling paste employed to create a sense of relief. He used a special catalyst to begin a lengthy chemical process of transforming the iron into rust. The paper was soaked in water for days and dried, acquiring a hard surface. Cheng controlled the process by deciding when to remove the paper from the wash. Cheng would sometimes resoak the paper in order to obtain the desired surface and textural coloration. He manipulated viscous surfaces with the smaller works and hoped to achieve a greater impasto with the larger torn paper pieces, as these pieces had a tendency to break if too heavily laden.^[2]

At a time when Asian-Americans were nearly absent from the contemporary art scene, Cheng was highly regarded by peers and by prominent art historians such as Gert Schiff and Henry Geldzahler, the first curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cheng exhibited his work extensively in New York and overseas.

References

1. ↑ Stavitsky, Gail (September 1988), "Ching Ho Cheng", Art in America
2. ↑ Geldzahler, Henry (November/December 1988) "Studio Visit: Ching Ho Cheng", CONTEMPORANEA