Pleased to announce 'Augury of Shanghai' made it to Art021 Art Fair in Shanghai, China with Almine Rech Gallery.
32 1/2 x 22 1/2 in
The 'Augury of China cities' paintings are of top earning GDP Chinese cities, some of which are equivalent to small nations. Reworking Dutch Golden Age still life paintings, Cheung creates a time-line between what is considered to be the birth of Modern Capitalism with the Dutch Empire over 370 years ago, the first recorded economic bubble in history (Tulipmania) to the rise of China as the next dominant 21st Century power. In part they are about the rise and fall of civilisations as well as the romantic language of still life painting; futile materialism and fragile mortality reflected by the transient beauty of flowers and also the sanded textures of the cityscapes that suggest an Ozymandian eventuality that grandeur crumbles to sand to poetically meditate on the human condition.
Check out more Augury of China Cities still lifes here.