Geoffrey L. Cheung

I’m interested in the ways we carry memories and how they inform our sense of self. Inherited, intergenerational memories can often impede our efforts to actively shape our identities and to find purpose and belonging. In recognition of this, my practice explores our capacity to reshape memories through meditation and rituals of remembrance.

The act of layering—the accumulation of wax, organic matter, and even digital materials overtop images—mirrors my own rituals of memory transformation. I choose to create densely layered and repetitive works that are not always immediately legible. In some, wax and organic matter accumulate over the image plane, ebbing away at the fidelity of the past. In others, digital processes layer, alter, and build upon a photograph, revealing new interpretations and narratives. The act of remembering is iterative, palimpsestic. As memories are cycled and recycled, I invite viewers to slow, meander, and participate with meditations and rituals of their own. Narratives can be written anew, opening up space for new voices and futures. 

Geoffrey Lok-Fay Cheung is an artist interested in the negotiation of personal identity and cultural inheritance, as informed by his own lived experiences growing up as a queer first-generation Canadian of Chinese descent. His research examines the way bodies hold and transform memories, from its compaction against familial narrative legacies, to its dilation through ritual and ceremony. His practice is guided by diverse material and disciplinary traditions, creating works that incorporate photographic images, organic materials, and digital processes. Cheung, an emerging artist who has shown works across Canada and the United States, is completing his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2024 from Emily Carr University. He lives and works on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish First Nations (Vancouver BC) as well an in Tkaronto (Toronto ON). He continues to hold a fascination for metaphysics and natural phenomena which began with a Bachelor and Master of Science. 

For more information visit: www.geoffreycheungart.com
@geoffrey.l.cheung