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Last year, I started making collages of all of the things I had spent years storing: magazines, stationary supplies, analog drafting equipment, etc. I can’t throw anything away: old drawings, magazines, art supplies, pens, ink, letraset transfer letters, paint samples.
It was exciting to look through all of this stuff again after years of being in boxes. Seeing all of these things I had saved for some reason many years ago, and deciding which pages and photos I liked, and which things could be thrown away, made me realize how much, or how little, I had changed. I started throwing some things away, which forced me to make decisions about what to save, what was compelling and what could be sacrificed.
I utilize both technology and hands on manipulation of acrylic paint, mixed media and digital imaging to create my work. My series, Without Brushes, consists of drawings made on an iPad and later finished with a photo editing tool. These artistic explorations took me in a new direction of combining my paintings into a series of Digital Art.
A practitioner of traditional black and white etching in San Francisco for over thirty years, I have long been drawn to the works and techniques of the master etchers and engravers of the past 400 years, as well as their literary counterparts. I often find inspiration in them or a point of departure for my own work —a bridge, if you will, between past thought and contemporary issues. One that sheds light in a unique way on such concerns. Often the depiction of mythological themes in these works contained political references mirroring the concerns of the day, and I try to utilize the same techniques with regard to current curses of humanity.
A practitioner of traditional black and white etching in San Francisco for over thirty years, I have long been drawn to the works and techniques of the master etchers and engravers of the past 400 years, as well as their literary counterparts. I often find inspiration in them or a point of departure for my own work —a bridge, if you will, between past thought and contemporary issues. One that sheds light in a unique way on such concerns. Often the depiction of mythological themes in these works contained political references mirroring the concerns of the day, and I try to utilize the same techniques with regard to current curses of humanity.
A practitioner of traditional black and white etching in San Francisco for over thirty years, I have long been drawn to the works and techniques of the master etchers and engravers of the past 400 years, as well as their literary counterparts. I often find inspiration in them or a point of departure for my own work —a bridge, if you will, between past thought and contemporary issues. One that sheds light in a unique way on such concerns. Often the depiction of mythological themes in these works contained political references mirroring the concerns of the day, and I try to utilize the same techniques with regard to current curses of humanity.
The interests and areas of my research are currently focused on urban zones as micro-ecologies and how some things become integrated into changing dynamics of the landscape. To question the type of landscape: what it contains, its organization, its distribution, and over a period of time its secession of both the living and non-living components is to see how these interfaces developed.
My Last Meal, 2017
watercolor, pen and ink, pastel
12" h x 16" w
Courtesy of the Artist
I have a lovely studio in my house with a sweeping view of Los Angeles. My rule for working in my studio is that I have to be happy and inspired before I enter the door. I got burned out as an artist when I was a lot younger because I worked when I hated what I was creating. I stopped making art for many years. So now, I protect myself from burn-out.
There are many books in my house, and I look at them to get inspired. I also read articles on the Internet, and often go to museums and galleries. I find that if I do these things and take good care of myself, my creativity bubbles up. I find that I have no choice —I must either go in my studio and paint or sit at my computer and write poetry or short stories.
My Last Meal was inspired by an article on the Internet about a woman named Kelly Renee Gissendaner who spent 19 years on Death Row in a Georgia State Prison. After 19 years, she was executed. Kelly Renee was convicted of conspiring to murder her husband. The painting shows a portrait of Kelly Renee, the components of her last meal on Death Row, and the death room where she was executed.
My Last Meal
All alone and I’m gonna die. They’re gonna make me die.
I’m here on Death Row. I planned to kill my husband.
I was like a blind slug in the ground.
I didn’t see what the plan would be, and then he was dead.
It’s been 19 years, and I’m sorry for what I done.
Sometimes I cry. I carry an old Kleenex around with me in my pocket.
But they’re gonna kill me later on tonight after midnight,
so I’m having my last meal. Two double Whoppers with cheese.
Two large fries. A lemonade and cherry vanilla ice cream.
Buttermilk and cornbread like my nana used to make in the skillet,
wearing that ol’ apron she sewed up way back in the ’40s.
And I’m going to have a salad cuz I know it’s good for me
even though I’m gonna die.
I think about that ol’ tire that I used to roll around in
when I was just a child, a-spinning, a-spinning,
I’d be stuck inside it a-spinning through the grass.
Well, soon I’ll be stuck in the Death Room bed,
a-waiting, a-waiting, when they stick me with that needle
everybody watching through the window.
God bless you all, Amazing Grace, amen.
Sapira Cheuk’s work revolves around issues of the body, embodiment, and women’s sexuality. Her work incorporates traditional Sumi Ink painting techniques and geometric elements to depict the complexity of the subject and corporeality, while building an alter- native narrative of not only bodily desires, but also intersubjective relations. Cheuk has exhibited in over fifty exhibitions, including those at the Orange County Contemporary Art Center, Riverside Art Museum, Rochester Contemporary Art Museum, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Robert & Frances Fullerton Museum of Art. She received her BA at University of California, Riverside and MFA from California State University, San Bernardino.
“Often the hands know how to solve a riddle with which the intellect wrestles in vain."
Carl Jung
Heading into the second half of life, I found myself in a kind of wilderness: turning many stones, and asking questions. Like the young bird in a favorite children's book, Are You My Mother, I found myself on a bumpy journey that kept taking left turns that I thought to be right. The process left me feeling lost and unmoored, unstructured and purposeless. But as a faithful student of curiosity –and by virtue of forward motion and friends as unsuspecting guides– one thing lead to another as I leaned into the possibilities.
I am a textile artist and printmaker. My work has its origins in quilting, but has evolved into something much less readily definable. Allowing for a larger container of discovery where border lines between thread, paper, ink, and scissors integrate; where fiber and thread are used with a liberty afforded to painters, pulling color into narrative thought both pointed and abstract.
Tagged: Unit Boundary from the Floating Forrest Series, 2017
four-color laser-cut woodcut on Awagami Kozo thin white paper 31" h x 23" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Over the past fifteen years, my work has addressed the fragility of the landscape. Whether it is the Nevada proving grounds, deep-sea terrain, corporate agriculture, Taiwan urban gardens, or the planting and harvesting of trees as a way of looking at the resurrection of the previously blighted or the implications of the unpredictable.
The print projects are directly related to the history, environment, and events at specific sites by linking process and content in black and white relief prints, hybrid digital/relief prints, and carbon prints on Taiwanese and Japanese papers. Ink, paper, and photography, along with specific wood and active physical image development, combine to elicit a response that is not immediately obvious, finding kinship among materials and subject.
L’ll Burn Veil from the Floating Forrest Series, 2017
relief print collé on archival digital carbon print on Awagami Kozo natural
23" h x 13.25" w Courtesy of the Artist
Over the past fifteen years, my work has addressed the fragility of the landscape. Whether it is the Nevada proving grounds, deep-sea terrain, corporate agriculture, Taiwan urban gardens, or the planting and harvesting of trees as a way of looking at the resurrection of the previously blighted or the implications of the unpredictable.
The print projects are directly related to the history, environment, and events at specific sites by linking process and content in black and white relief prints, hybrid digital/relief prints, and carbon prints on Taiwanese and Japanese papers. Ink, paper, and photography, along with specific wood and active physical image development, combine to elicit a response that is not immediately obvious, finding kinship among materials and subject.
Trace from the Edge of the Pleistocene Series, 2016-2017
archival carbon print and relief prints on Awagami Kozo thin white paper
83" h x 30" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Over the past fifteen years, my work has addressed the fragility of the landscape. Whether it is the Nevada proving grounds, deep-sea terrain, corporate agriculture, Taiwan urban gardens, or the planting and harvesting of trees as a way of looking at the resurrection of the previously blighted or the implications of the unpredictable.
The print projects are directly related to the history, environment, and events at specific sites by linking process and content in black and white relief prints, hybrid digital/relief prints, and carbon prints on Taiwanese and Japanese papers. Ink, paper, and photography, along with specific wood and active physical image development, combine to elicit a response that is not immediately obvious, finding kinship among materials and subject.
Enterprising Machines I, 2016
woodcut and digital mixed media print
16" h x 12" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Enterprising Machines are works inspired by machine aesthetics that reference common tools and domestic utilitarian objects. My work is created by intermingling woodcut, the first print form, with current digital processes. This combination of old and new techniques amplifies the relationship between the human hand and machine within these images.
Consumer catalogues published in the early 1900s for Pratt and Whitney tools, and the Enterprise Manufacturing Company, maker of domestic gadgets, inspire these works. Digitally printed elements I compose recall blueprints or plans and create a foundation for the modification of the context of these implements.
Working from observation of actual objects and making forms with the assistance of 3D modeling allows for transposition and mutability between layers of printed and observed information. The objects explored are simultaneously transformed, denying their original functional purpose, and asserting an animated physical presence and internal narrative.
Disposition from the Views III Series, 2017 acrylic ink and sharpie pen on paper, paper collage
18" h x 24" w
Courtesy of the Artist
The third movement of the Views collection is focused on dialogue. It is a point/counterpoint exploration of communications, technology, and queer sexuality. Images and hand-writing create a visual environment where language reveals varying perceptions from viewpoints that show dichotomies from straight to queer, celebratory to predatory, religious to lecherous, or supportive to radical.
These narrative landscapes are physically-layered over ink paintings, raised by just a few centimeters. Duality is present in all my works, which seem to argue within one another through symbolism and meaning.
This hybrid reality recalls the layered existence of queer masculinity. The paintings explore the objectification of the human experience, using a visual language of power, light, and sexuality. The encounters —from online comments to locker room glances— are recognizable because they are harvested from our post digital reality.
Each of the works is paired with cut companion pieces, offering an attempt to reconstruct context, while simultaneously emphasizing the solitary nature of holding a single view.
Suite 450, 2016
linocut reduction print,
edition of 10
22" h x 35.25" w
Courtesy of the Artist
My life-long art theme is “undigital.”
In my childhood, everything seemed to happen much slower. Whatever I saw, heard, smelled, touched, or felt, I had more time to think about, enjoy, and digest.
Looking back now on my sixty-some odd years, I realize that what has made life rich has been a belief in my five senses; as well as an appreciation of the slow pace at which time has patiently kept me company —as opposed to arriving with a flood of instant information.
Touched 012 from the Touched Series, 2017 assemblage: plaster, Chinese ink, printer’s ink, acrylic, gloves, rubber, paper, metal, plastic with collage over birch panel box
53" h x 56" w x 6 d
Courtesy of the Artist
In the broadest sense, this is an explorative abstract created between the parameters of a sculpture and a painting. And I confess, this is my second attempt at striving to capture the whitewashed addiction and seductive entrapment of computer technology. All within similar dimensions and chroma of an earlier work titled, Touched #10.
Through my personal journey with this artwork, and the body of work that preceded it, I have come to a fuller understanding in the discovery that our hope for meaningful communication can only become reality via personal relationship, the desire for which is built into our DNA. A kind of relationship that has the potential to heal our spirits and enable us to forgive each other for our differences and imperfections as we learn how to forgive ourselves. Although I may never know all it means, or why I’ve incorporated the gloves and combined them with acrylic, ink, plaster, and computer components, this work continues to speak to me and teach me. I have come to understand that while connection and communication has served as a catalyst fueling this body of work, the work in its fullest sense is about healing –my healing and yours.
Denouement, 2016
acrylic, ink, and charcoal on canvas over panel
24" h x 24" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Intimate organic textures and majestic stellar expanses are suggested by the unique qualities of ink and acrylic media.
This range of expressive possibilities is only possible with the singular characteristics that ink provides.
Autumn Window 1/3, 2017
lithograph
30" h x 22" w
Courtesy of the Artist
In the dawn of prehistory, when I was younger, I spent a summer in a heightened state of awareness sans drugs. I was so exhilarated by the visual world around me, I borrowed a camera and started taking pictures of fields of daisies, Japanese beetles, and dew on the grass. Later I had a series of explicit dreams: the photographs I had taken arrived in collaged compositions that actually had a form-content relationship. I was not an artist at the time, nevertheless, I printed and cut the photos, pre-Photoshop, into these compositions.
Recently, I decided to return to work with those images. After wasting a lot of paper and telling myself to keep trying to get the technique right, I produced some lithographs. Autumn Window is a series of photos of dying lilacs and apples from a bitter November day long ago.
People of the Valley from the Quick Sketches to Studied Paintings Series, 2017
gouache on watercolor paper
22" h x 30" w
Courtesy of the Artist
This series of paintings begin as quick sketches to become carefully studied paintings. My partner drives while I draw. I look up and isolate an object or spot in the landscape. Look down and quickly make a mark. When I look up again, the landscape has changed, so it is a process of constant designing. The finished drawing actually looks like “someplace.” But each drawing is a compilation of many isolated views, more like a collage. With just a few lines I am able to capture the landscape. Of course, all drawings are abstract, made up of lines, marks and a few smudges but are considered the closest to the way an artist thinks.
I use an iPad, a new tool for drawing, to record my first impressions. Returning to the studio, the drawings are studied to find the ones that resonate. It is their simplicity, the line quality, the lightness and darkness of the line, the thickness and thinness of the line, where they are placed on the page, the negative and positive space suggested, and the freshness that appeals to me. When the drawings are selected, I draw them on watercolor paper and carefully paint them in gouache.
Lovely Lady, 2016
ink wash on Japanese Paper 21" h x 17" w
Courtesy of the Artist
As a Hispanic female artist, I express myself best through my art. By reflecting on my own life and heritage, my creativity flows.
I am a printmaker who pushes the boundaries. Woodcuts and other print-making techniques have allowed me to experiment with a variety of papers and media. Thanks to family members in Japan, my studio features a wide range of washi papers.
Evolving Species, 2017
etching and relief
18" h x 22" w
Courtesy of the Artist
The Parched Earth series illustrates the threat climate change poses to biological diversity. Lyke is inspired by the need to protect diverse animals, including: African elephants, emperor penguins, and endangered California wildlife. For these species, climate change and human over-population constitute real dangers to their habitats. Lyke evokes the damage climate change has wrought on Earth using a relief method of printing to suggest the earth with etchings of endangered animals printed on the surface of the parched earth. In Survival, the cracked earth calls forth the dry, brittle land of California during its five-year drought.
The Adventures of Chanticleer and Partlet from the Grimms' Kinder Und Hausmärchen Series, 2017
ink (Pentel Stylo) and Copic markers on paper
10" h x 10" w
Courtesy of the Artist
These images, all created in 2017, are part of an ongoing project to reimagine illustrations to accompany the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen fairy tales, originally published in 1812. In particular, these images are intended to illustrate:
The Adventures of Chanticleer and Partlet; and The Traveling Musicians
The Traveling Musicians from the
Grimms' Kinder Und Hausmärchen Series, 2017
ink (Pentel Stylo) and Copic markers and
color pencil on toned paper
10" h x 10" w
Courtesy of the Artist
These images, all created in 2017, are part of an ongoing project to reimagine illustrations to accompany the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen fairy tales, originally published in 1812. In particular, these images are intended to illustrate:
The Adventures of Chanticleer and Partlet; and The Traveling Musicians
Hello Northwest-Goodbye Southwest from the Observer Series, 2017
mixed media: ink and ink-generated digital media
20" h x 16" w
Courtesy of the Artist
I have developed several series of artworks under the archetype of ‘Observer.’ The ‘Observer’ is one who sees beyond material achievement and loves watching, looking, and experiencing. I see the ‘Observer’ as a dreamer, very attuned to their surroundings, who allows the cultural minutiae of everyday life to seep in and out of their consciousness.
In this new artwork, I am attempting to show the difficulties –loneliness and isolation– and the beauty of starting a new life, in a new state, by combining some of my favorite art and nature from both places. It represents an attempt to normalize this dramatic change in my life.
I am interested in creating image where beauty and bravery meet, and to tell the truth, of what is haunting me. Like a black hole that absorbs energy and then releases it as something new and alive.
I often work from an unconscious, intuitive place. Surprising myself by what comes out of that. I am interested in the revelations that result from observing the figure from a range of perspectives, approaching an idea using a gamut of mediums —each medium revealing another layer of intimacy. I allow myself the freedom to drive into the image by changing scale and exploring the figure within a wide spectrum of techniques and possibilities. I call this `Degrees of Freedom´, allowing myself to enter any territory that could bring me new revelation and insight into the narrative of human nature revealed by any particular figure that I am working with.
The Escalator, 2016
FW Artist’s Ink on wood panel
68" h x 32" w
Courtesy of the Artist
I love to work with lines and gesture to express images. The developmental process of drawing generates surprising changes that unfold as the images take their place on the canvas. Images that vary in shape, size, and intensity of color create a collage effect that compels the viewer to notice something new in each observation of the piece. Even the space between the images and the shadows and light create visual stimulation. The Escalator is an up and down shopping experience.
Calafia from the Riviera Series, 2017
acrylic wash with fluid matte medium, interference, flourescent (transparent), 18kt gold leafing pen, gold metallic bronze ink, iridescent (fine), coarse white paste, pearlescent-opaque, fluid acrylic, canvas partially primed with clear gesso
54" h x 48" w x 1.5 d
Courtesy of the Artist
I describe myself as a California artist. As a fourth generation California native, much of my work explores the powerful natural elements that dominate the Southern California landscape and the iconic culture that has been born of it. I am influenced by the work of artists such as Peter Alexander, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha and Richard Diebenkorn.
Working with mixed media, I often include gels, resin, fluorescence, pearlesence, and iridescence —materials that capture and reflect light to imitate the changeable conditions of nature.
My Riviera District paintings are an exploration of the beaches and waters of San Clemente. Calafia uses warm washes of acrylic stains interspersed with golden edges and splatters of bronze ink, reminiscent of summer sunsets simmering like the desert sun. These colors beckon you to a good today and a happy future.
And IT Matters Why? from The Nature of Things Series, 2016
mixed media: ink, collage, watercolor, metal leaf
30" h x 22" w
Courtesy of the Artist
In a world currently filled with uncertainties the attention to “all things Nature” allows us a freedom of, and connection to the differences in our global community that add to creating a more available quality to life.
Each day we are called on to make choices about how to live, reaching to our core value to be. A showing-up for and able to develop critical thinking skills in the not so simple phenomena of the physical world, landscapes, animals, and plants; the not so easy human condition, man-made structures, social rules; and the never superficial inherent beauty of things — their sense of magic. Each with a language of its own and we can’t look away from what they demand of us, personal growth.
Art has a way of saving “things” from extinction. Even if it’s just a simple easy, depth of a new color, sound, or distraction from — there is nothing so compelling when it comes to an artistic view.
Art is a powerful influencer. Art that encourages choice creates a kinetic pull in such a way that it takes the action of “walking away” from it to realize something changed and a safe place using space / time / location experiences now exists.
Closed Encounters, 2016
ink-based digital images printed on transparency, hand-stitched
36" h x 36" w
Courtesy of the Artist
My work is about transformation.
I am interested in reconfiguring shapes and patterns by printing a repeating pattern, on a transparent material that interacts with light, to create a unique visual experience.
Chimera, 2017
ink and watercolor on paper
27" h x 9" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Chinese calligraphy is prized above painting for its moral and physical components, using ink and brush to go beyond traditional meaning of words. The language has developed different styles over thousands of years, and I have worked years to develop my own abstract styles after having mastered the traditional styles. My work blends ancient and new, demonstrating timeless themes. I use traditional Chinese single xuan paper, brushes, bamboo pens, and mixed inks along with Western paints in compositions using Eastern and Western art sensibilities. For example, Chimera abstracts the characters for "devil king" in a soft and dreamlike setting, but without the strength of upright characters much as political rhetoric is often delivered. The work allows for viewer interpretation, regardless of their knowledge of the written language.
Vintage, 2015
reductive woodcut with stencils and rubber stamp
14" h x 20.5" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Big Bang II, 2017
acrylic paint, Sumi Ink, pouring medium
24" h x 36" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Big Bang II looks at the beginning eruption or the genesis of heaven and earth. From the molten explosion of colors, giving rise to the cool of wind and seas, and the pushing upward of the dark bumpy layers of the earth’s crust, our solar system miraculously and divinely supports and nourishes our diverse humanity.
Moving Towards The Light, 2017
acrylic, ink and collage on linen
40" h x 36" w
Courtesy of the Artist
I create abstract worlds through combinations of line and formlessness. Exploring the challenge of texture and space, I let the painting happen. Rich colors conflict with areas that are translucent, allowing marks and textures to come through: a flat arrangement of interlocking planes, an exploration of the natural world, a neglected garden, a fantasy.
Each piece is a visual narrative but I cannot tell you what it is. It is my reaction to nature, and the beauty of the outside world. It is my language, coming from inside. You have to stay with my pieces a while to get it. My work relates to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect. I explore the challenge of texture and space in paint, ink, and collage.
Everyday I must be in my studio or I deny myself the chance of something happening, a thread, an idea I can work with. Wherever I live, the challenges as a painter are the same, the explorations endless, the process fascinating and all-consuming.
Walking in an English Winter, 2017
acrylic, ink and collage on canvas
22.5" h x 24.25" w
Courtesy of the Artist
I create abstract worlds through combinations of line and formlessness. Exploring the challenge of texture and space, I let the painting happen. Rich colors conflict with areas that are translucent, allowing marks and textures to come through: a flat arrangement of interlocking planes, an exploration of the natural world, a neglected garden, a fantasy.
Each piece is a visual narrative but I cannot tell you what it is. It is my reaction to nature, and the beauty of the outside world. It is my language, coming from inside. You have to stay with my pieces a while to get it. My work relates to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect. I explore the challenge of texture and space in paint, ink, and collage.
Everyday I must be in my studio or I deny myself the chance of something happening, a thread, an idea I can work with. Wherever I live, the challenges as a painter are the same, the explorations endless, the process fascinating and all-consuming.
Nocturnal Encounter, 2017
woodcut reduction print
20" h x 16" w Courtesy of the Artist
My creative research is informed by my interest in pattern, camouflage, mimicry, layering, and relative scale. I find inspiration both in the natural and human-made world, creating abstract and non-representational works of art that gradually reveal and obscure information in richly textured layers.
EEG Takes Flight, 2016
linoprint with augmented reality overlay
20" h x 26" w
Courtesy of the Artist
Ever since I was seven years old, I was obsessed with time. I was fascinated by the world’s different coexistent calendars, our internal biological clocks, and the way scientists tried to understand the physics of the 4th dimension. My work today deepens and extends that never-ending conversation I have with the historical past I love and the future I am dying to know.
I want my work to get people talking and debating the future. What will it be like? How will we react? What about virtual worlds, EEG brain wearables, augmented reality, reverse aging, driverless cars, gender disappearance…?
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Ink & Clay 43
Kellogg University Art Gallery
Cal Poly Pomona
September 16- October 26, 2017
© 2017 Kellogg University Art Gallery
Cal Poly Pomona
The artworks filmed, photographed and presented herein were used courtesy of each participating artist, with their individual permission.
Copyright of all artwork used or reproduced is owned by each individual artist and cannot be copied or reproduced without each artist's individual permission.