Hillary Josephine Cheung

“My work is big. Ho dai- overpoweringly large. The kind of large that makes you really have to face it. I sculpt oversized, exaggerated forms that distort both the weight and lightness of familiar childhood objects, a push-and-pull shaped by my experience growing up between Eastern and Western cultures. I work primarily with papier-mâché and mixed media, drawn to their ability to be both crude and delicate, both playful and unsettling. Inspired by artists like Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol, I pull from their elevation of the mundane to the monumental, while infusing it with critique- of capitalism, of cultural bias, of the Asian American experience.

A piece like ABC Pt. 1 plays with this directly (a giant Japanese candy filled with M&Ms), framed by text critiquing the exotification of non-Western foods. On the surface, it’s dat yee- cute and fun, nostalgic and familiar. But if you look closer, if you stare at it too long, it’s siu siu geng- something a little off, scary. It’s like biting into something that looks sweet and realizing the inside is salty. That unsettling contrast is part of the work.

I grew up in the Bay Area, a place that markets itself as utopian and progressive but, in reality, is steeped in a culture of self-loathing, especially within minority communities. The tension between how we see ourselves and how others see us is constant, and that’s what I explore in my work. For siu peng yao (kids) they might just see a dat yee character, something fun, cute, bright. But for dai yen (adults) the deeper context is unavoidable. And for bac yen (outsiders) maybe they find it offensive, maybe they feel uncomfortable, but they also understand, even if they don’t want to.

My practice is rooted in materials that feel like home. When I first started my collegiate studies, I didn’t know what medium felt right, what subjects to explore. Through experimentation, I came back to papier-mâché- something I had used in childhood, something elementary yet full of potential. To see this "lowly" material elevated on a massive scale evokes a kind of nostalgia, a longing for a past that is both personal and collective. And through that, I construct moments of recognition- familiar logos, packaging, textures that feel lived in. The work should feel zhen zhen day (somewhat real), but also undeniably ga la (fake)- rooted in my perspective.

At the core, my work is about memory and perception, about the ways culture shifts in translation. It’s about the blurry space where East and West overlap- where you think you recognize something but realize it’s not quite what you expected. What does it mean to exist between? The answer is in the work.”