Tag Archives: Choichun Leung

CHOICHUN LEUNG’s solo “The Watchful Eyes” reviewed in The Washington Post

6 Feb

Arts & Entertainment

Review

In the galleries: Artist’s imagery examines community-building in the aftermath of trauma

Choichun Leung’s decade-long Young Girl Project focuses on a show of solidarity

By Mark Jenkins

Contributing reporter

February 4, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Choichun Leung, The Watchful Eyes, 2021, 64″x55″, acrylic, pen and graphite on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Morton Fine Art.

In Choichun Leung’s “The Watchful Eyes,” a show of paintings and drawings at Morton Fine Art, the drawings seem to dominate. That’s not because the paintings, which are bigger and more colorful, are less compelling on their own terms. But the black-and-white renderings of girls, which speak to the artist’s concern with childhood sexual abuse, set the tone for all the work. Images from the drawings infiltrate the paintings, where they become more abstract yet remain charged and haunting.

Leung is a Chinese-British artist who grew up in Wales and is now based in Brooklyn. She performed traditional Chinese music and earned a degree in metalsmithing before teaching herself to paint. Her original style was abstract and aqueous, suggesting the sea that laps three sides of her childhood homeland. There are glimmers of that style in Leung’s more recent work, but the pictures are dominated by the figures of girls, often banded together as multitudes. In the show’s title work, dozens of heads float amid a profusion of disembodied hands and dotted lines that represent energy flowing within and among bodies.

This show marks the 10th anniversary of the Young Girl Project, an anti-abuse organization Leung founded in 2012. A drawing the artist made that year, “Bound Girl,” shows a child wrapped almost entirely in rope. That captive figure reappears in later works, but always accompanied — in an imagined show of solidarity — by other, unfettered children. In the strikingly arrayed “Girl Gang,” from 2020, a tight cluster of dark-haired heads is surrounded by smaller heads in the distance. (Perhaps because they’re in some sense autobiographical, the girls in these pictures always appear Asian, but a wider array of ethnicities, as well as a boy, appear in Leung’s drawings on the Young Girl Project’s website.)

Brightly hued and more complexly composed, the paintings place the girls in appealingly surreal landscapes. Leung once worked as an assistant to pop artist Peter Max, and her pictures have some of his comic-book-like directness and verve. In such pictures as “Four Girls in the Dreamworld,” rendered in ink and gouache, the hard-edge figures move among soft shapes and watery colors. Leung’s glowing reveries are animated by trauma, but they can look like places of refuge.

Choichun Leung: The Watchful Eyes Through Feb. 17 at Morton Fine Art, 52 O St. NW, #302. Open by appointment.

Available Artwork by CHOICHUN LEUNG

CHOICHUN LEUNG | Cultured Magazine

21 Jan

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Choichun Leung Uses Art to Communicate with Survivors

ART

Choichun Leung Uses Art to Communicate with Survivors

The painter shares her latest body of work, her nonprofit and how the two have created pathways towards healing from childhood sexual abuse.WORDS

January 19, 2022

Choichun Leung is, as she puts it, the “product of a Chinese takeaway upbringing.” The artist grew up in Wales—her mother from the UK, her father from Hong Kong—where, from a young age, she began cooking and working at the family restaurant. She says that while her father was also creative, his circumstances as a Chinese man in the 1950s meant he wasn’t able to act on it; but as she watched him draw or make things with chopsticks after work, she caught on. She has a clear memory from about three years old of making playdough sculptures for a school competition. As a shy kid, Leung says art often allowed her to communicate—both with others and herself: “Art was my imaginary world that helped me disappear from my reality.”

Chiochun Leung in her studio. Photography courtesy of the artist.

With time, Leung had her hands in various mediums, and eventually chose to pursue metalwork with her education. She felt both a spiritual connection to the trade—she recounts visits to Chinese monasteries in her late teens that inspired a “fascination with ceremonial objects”—and believed it was a function that had to be learned, from welding and forging to raising a bowl. She believed that painting, on the other hand, would come from her. And it did.

Leung had always been a doodler, oftentimes depicting the heads of three Chinese girls in her work. Once, a friend asked why she stopped drawing at the characters’ heads: “He said, ‘why don’t you just carry on drawing the bodies?,’ and I began to feel that self-restriction telling me a story. I realized what was covered was a story of all the emotion that I had kept in.”

Chiochun Leung, Subconscious. Conscious., 2019. Photograohy courtesy the artist and Morton Fine Art.

In the years that followed her friend’s prompt, Leung began to visually communicate with herself, drawing more and more Chinese figures as she reconciled memory and healing. “When I was drawing,” she shares, “I was remembering how I felt as a child.” At around age six, Leung has a memory of being sexually abused, and because she never approaches a painting with an intention, she shares how the story of her past began to reveal itself to her, thus fueling her journey as a survivor. Today, Morton Fine Art in Washington, D.C. opens Leung’s solo show, “The Watchful Eyes,” which amalgamates previous work from her journey with The Young Girl Project and otherwise.

Chiochun Leung, The Watchful Eyes, 2021. Photography courtesy the artist and Morton Fine Art.

As she has begun to exhibit these paintings, Leung has witnessed how her work catalyzes dialogue around childhood sexual abuse. “These young kids are so open when they see the work,” Leung says. She shares that children will point out certain parts of her work—a girl hiding, a depiction of self harm, hands up to cover a child’s face—and ask what they mean. “I’ll say, ‘Well, she’s upset because somebody touched her vagina,’ or another graphic action phrased in a way that is most accessible to children.” Consequently, Leung’s paintings have become a channel for conversation around consent, allowing parents and their children to have honest dialogue around traumatizing events. Leung’s ability to document her own stories, both subconsciously and more advertently, has become a source of relief and education for many.

This year, Leung has turned her series of paintings and their ensuing discourse into an nonprofit, The Young Girl Project, that strives to destigmatize conversations around the sexual abuse of children. In conversations with survivors, Leung says she observes children feeling understood. In addition to being a resource for help, the organization asks that everyone who sees the project share it with five friends in some capacity. “We’re working to take something that is taboo out of that arena [and] into the mainstream in order to dispel shame,” the artist explains.

Chiochun Leung, Backward. Forward, 2019. Photograohy courtesy the artist and Morton Fine Art.

As for why she thinks her work has resonated with survivors, it all comes down to art as an integral method of communication, particularly for children. “Children that have been abused don’t have the words to express it sometimes,” she shares. Almost accidentally, Leung has mimicked the work of therapists and community workers who are identifying cases of sexual abuse. “Using art helps [children] discern what has happened to them—by asking them to draw or observing the subject matter of their [existing] drawings,” she says.

Ultimately Leung hopes to create a community that advocates for the most vulnerable facing of sexual abuse. And, in doing so, she wants to teach children to think for themselves. “This is about defying authority—saying no to an adult who’s telling you to do something you don’t want to do,” she shares. “It’s all about connecting to your gut and your intuition. If you feel something isn’t right or wrong, trust that and act upon it.”

Available Artwork by CHOICHUN LEUNG.

Gallery

Morton Fine Art – Booth #216 at Aqua Art Miami 14

4 Dec

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Morton Fine Art at Aqua Art Miami 2014

30 Oct

aqua 14

Morton Fine Art invites you to attend Aqua Art Miami. For the third consecutive year, MFA will be located in booth #216 at Aqua Art Miami international fine art fair.  

Show Hours

Wednesday, December 3 | 3pm-10pm | VIP Opening Preview Party (for VIP pass holders)

Regular Fair Hours
Thursday, December 4 : 12pm – 9pm
Friday, December 5 : 11am – 9pm
Saturday, December 6 : 11am – 9pm
Sunday, December 7 : 11am – 6pm

Location

Aqua Art Miami – Aqua Hotel, 1539 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139

Aqua is located on Collins Ave, a short walk south of Art Basel Miami Beach, across from the Loews Hotel.

Morton Fine Art will be located in Suite 216.

Featured Artists

Maya Freelon Asante (North Carolina, b. USA)

Osi Audu (NYC, b. Nigeria)

Kesha Bruce (France, b. USA)

Ethan Diehl (Iowa, b. USA)

Victor Ekpuk (Washington, DC, b. Nigeria)

GA Gardner (Trinidad, b. Trinidad)

Katherine Hattam (Melbourne, b. Australia)

Choichun Leung (NYC, b. Wales)

William Mackinnon (Melbourne, b. Australia)

Nnenna Okore (Illinois, b. Nigeria)

Andrei Petrov (NYC, b. USA)

Stephon Senegal (Washington, DC, b. USA)

Vonn Sumner (Los Angeles, b. USA)

Charles Williams (North Carolina, b. USA)

Preview the work on the Morton Fine Art website: www.mortonfineart.com

mortonfineart@gmail.com, (202) 628-2787

“An Evening of Visual Awakening” – Special Event Photos at Morton Fine Art

22 Oct

“An Evening of Visual Awakening” hosted by Naleli Askew, Audrey Johnson, Sheryl Scruggs, Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at Morton Fine Art Gallery, Washington, DC. Photo credits: DeJohn Davis Photography

A collaboration of creativity and design by three luxepreneurs was an experience curated for a select group of clients, associates and friends. Guest viewed the contemporary artwork exhibit featuring Artists Choichun Leung, Ga Gardner, and Maya Freelon Asante; and networked with art enthusiasts and collectors.

Hosts: Naleli Askew, Jewel Mine by Naleli, Audrey Johnson, AudreyLynnJo; and Sheryl Scruggs, Bronze Interiors

Gallery Owner: Amy Morton

Photographer: DeJohn Davis Photography

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ARC Magazine: Morton Fine Art presents ‘Timeless Remnants’ featuring Maya Freelon Asante, GA Gardner and Choichun Leung

14 Oct

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Morton Fine Art presents ‘Timeless Remnants’ featuring Maya Freelon Asante, GA Gardner and Choichun Leung

By ARC Magazine Sunday, September 21st, 2014

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Jung stated that “in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature…there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually, but is inherited”. Timeless Remnants explores that which resonates within the collective and individual memory and aims to elicit universal emotional response through techniques of script, mark making, composition, palette, texture, layering, energy and tensions present in the artwork.

Maya Freelon Asante, Again & Again, 56"x58", tissue ink on paper

About Maya Freelon Asante (Chapel Hill, b. USA): Maya Freelon Asante is an award-winning artist whose artwork was described by poet Maya Angelou as “visualizing the truth about the vulnerability and power of the human being,” and her unique tissue paper work was also praised by the International Review of African American Art as a “vibrant, beating assemblage of color.” She was selected by Modern Luxury Magazine as Best of the City 2013 and by the Huffington Post’s “Black Artists: 30 Contemporary Art Makers Under 40 You Should Know“. Maya has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including Paris, Ghana, and US Embassies in Madagascar, Italy, Jamaica, and Swaziland. She has been a professor of art at Towson University and Morgan State University. Maya has attended numerous residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Kokrobitey Institute and Brandywine Workshop. She earned a BA from Lafayette College and an MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

GA Gardner, So You, 65"x42", mixed media on mylar

About GA Gardner (Trinidad, b. Trinidad): Gardner’s work is a visual representation of the proliferation of media and information in contemporary society and the resulting cacophony of messages it engenders. The goal of his work is to dissect and neutralize the white noise found in these forms of media and create cohesive stories that integrate his cultural background as an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago living and working in the USA. He presents a Caribbean aesthetic in his art by utilizing colors, textures, and environments as the lens through which he sees urban contemporary life in America, weaving his cultural identity back into the fabric of our society. GA Gardner began his professional art career in New York City, creating and exhibiting large format 3D computer fine art in 1996. Gardner studied fine art at San Francisco State University, California, from which he earned both his Bachelor’s of Arts and Master’s of Arts degrees. Gardner crafted mixed media art and animation at The Ohio State University, Columbus, where he earned a Ph.D. in Art Education in 1995. Gardner has served as a professor of art and animation at various universities, including William Paterson University (Wayne, New Jersey); University of the District of Columbia; and George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia), and has been a lecturer at The Ohio State University.

Choichun Leung, The Transparent Route, 48"x50", acrylic on canvas

About Choichun Leung (New York, b. UK): Leung’s “Diplopia” series of paintings occurred after losing partial eyesight in 2013 and living with double vision for a period of half a year. During this time, her perspective as a visual artist changed drastically – she no longer saw detail in objects clearly, had no spacial depth of vision, saw contrast and light intensely and sounds became more acute. Moving objects were blurry as her eyes could not synchronize to follow movement. The work in this series is an expression of what she experienced visually; when everything overlapped, and was blurry, intertwined and complex. Her “Diplopia” paintings are a record of the new way of seeing, which made her question her perception of reality of the senses, where loss created a new meaning of abstract impressions and color. She was raised in Wales, born to a British mother and Chinese father. Leung earned a degree in 3D design specializing in metalsmithing in the U.K., and later operated a metal studio fabricating her vessel designs and percussion instruments. Leung participated in the Ray Man Chinese Orchestra in London, performing Chinese classical and folk music. She later studied Buddhist Symbolism at the Yungang Caves Archaeological Site in China. This is her fourth exhibition at Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

Exhibition: September 26th- October 17th, 2014

Opening Night Reception: Friday, September 26th, 6pm-8pm Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009, United States

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ARC Magazine
ARC Magazine

ARC Inc. is a non-profit print and online publication and social platform launched in 2011. It seeks to fill a certain void by offering a critical space for contemporary artists to present their work while fostering and developing critical dialogues and opportunities for crucial points of exchange. ARC is an online and social space of interaction with a developed methodology of sharing information about contemporary practices, exhibitions, partnerships, and opportunities occurring in the Caribbean region and throughout its diasporas.

– See more at: http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/09/morton-fine-art-presents-timeless-remnants-featuring-the-work-of-maya-freelon-asante-ga-gardner-and-choichun-leung/#sthash.TvTrmkOZ.dpuf

Opening Reception Shots from “Timeless Remnants”

9 Oct

Thanks to photographer and MFA guest Ruby Hardy Black for documenting our opening reception for the group exhibition, “Timeless Remnants” featuring artwork by MAYA FREELON ASANTE, GA GARDNER & CHOICHUN LEUNG.

Thank you to all our collectors and art enthusiasts who came out for this wonderful exhibition!

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Washington Post features “Timeless Remnants” – MAYA FREELON ASANTE, GA GARDNER & CHOICHUN LEUNG

7 Oct

The Washington Post, “In the Galleries” section, Sunday, October 5, 2014

by Mark Jenkins

Timeless Remnants Review WaPo Crop more

“Timeless Remnants” – Washington Post’s Gallery Opening of the Week

30 Sep

 

Wash Post Timeless Remnants Opening of the Week 2014 web

 

We are pleased to announce a wonderful turn out to Friday night’s opening of “Timeless Remnants” featuring abstract artworks by MAYA FREELON ASANTE, GA GARDNER & CHOICHUN LEUNG.   Many thanks to Michael O’Sullivan and the Washington Post for highlighting the exhibition at “Gallery Opening of the Week” in their Friday, September 26, 2014 edition!

TIMELESS REMNANTS Group Exhibition Opens Friday September 26th, 2014

27 Aug
TIMELESS REMNANTS
New Abstract Artworks in a variety of media by MAYA FREELON ASANTE, GA GARDNER and CHOICHUN LEUNG
September 26th- October 17th, 2014

OPENING RECEPTION 

Friday, September 26th, 6pm-8pm

Jung stated that “in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature…there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually, but is inherited”. The abstract artwork in Timeless Remnants combines elements of “inherited” collective memory consisting of pre-existent forms and each artist’s individual experience of life, colored with her/his unique culture, personality and life events.  Featured artists hail from varied countries of origin, and bring forward bountiful travels and experiences from around the world. Timeless Remnants explores that which resonates within the collective and individual memory and aims to elicit universal emotional response through techniques of script, mark making, composition, palette, texture, layering, energy and tensions present in the artwork.

 

 

MAYA FREELON ASANTE, Again & Again, 56"x58", tissue ink on paper

MAYA FREELON ASANTE, Again & Again, 56″x58″, tissue ink on paper

About MAYA FREELON ASANTE (Chapel Hill, b. USA): 

Maya Freelon Asante is an award-winning artist whose artwork was described by poet Maya Angelou as 
“visualizing the truth about the vulnerability and power of the human being,” and her unique tissue paper 
work was also praised by the International Review of African American Art as a “vibrant, beating 
assemblage of color.” She was selected by Modern Luxury Magazine as Best of the City 2013 and by the Huffington Post’s “Black Artists: 30 Contemporary Art Makers Under 40 You Should Know”.
 
Maya has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including Paris, Ghana, and US Embassies in 
Madagascar, Italy, Jamaica, and Swaziland. She has been a professor of art at Towson University and 
Morgan State University. Maya has attended numerous residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting 
and Sculpture, the Korobitey Institute and Brandywine Workshop. She earned a BA from Lafayette College and an MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 
 
 
 
GA GARDNER, So You, 65"x42", mixed media on mylar

GA GARDNER, So You, 65″x42″, mixed media on mylar 

About GA GARDNER (Trinidad, b. Trinidad): 

GARDNER’S work is a visual representation of the proliferation of media and information in contemporary society and the resulting cacophony of messages it engenders. The goal of his work is to dissect and neutralize the white noise found in these forms of media and create cohesive stories that integrate his cultural background as an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago living and working in the USA. He presents a Caribbean aesthetic in his art by utilizing colors, textures, and environments as the lens through which he sees urban contemporary life in America, weaving his cultural identity back into the fabric of our society. 

GA Gardner began his professional art career in New York City, creating and exhibiting large format 3D computer fine art in 1996. Gardner studied fine art at San Francisco State University, California, from which he earned both his Bachelor’s of Arts and Master’s of Arts degrees. Gardner crafted mixed media art and animation at The Ohio State University, Columbus, where he earned a Ph.D. in Art Education in 1995. Gardner has served as a professor of art and animation at various universities, including William Paterson University (Wayne, New Jersey); University of the District of Columbia; and George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia), and has been a lecturer at The Ohio State University.

 

 

CHOICHUN LEUNG, The Transparent Route, 48"x50", acrylic on canvas

CHOICHUN LEUNG, The Transparent Route, 48″x50″, acrylic on canvas 

About CHOICHUN LEUNG (New York, b. UK): 

LEUNG’s “Diplopia” series of paintings occurred after losing partial eyesight in 2013 and living with double vision for a period of half a year. During this time, her perspective as a visual artist changed drastically – she no longer saw detail in objects clearly, had no spacial depth of vision, saw contrast and light intensely and sounds became more acute. Moving objects were blurry as her eyes could not synchronize to follow movement.  The work in this series is an expression of what she experienced visually; when everything overlapped, and was blurry, intertwined and complex. Her “Diplopia” paintings are a record of the new way of seeing, which made her question her perception of reality of the senses, where loss created a new meaning of abstract impressions and color. 

CHOICHUN LEUNG was raised in Wales, born to a British mother and Chinese father. Leung earned a degree in 3D design specializing in metalsmithing in the U.K., and later operated a metal studio fabricating her vessel designs and percussion instruments. Leung participated in the Ray Man Chinese Orchestra in London, performing Chinese classical and folk music. She later studied Buddhist Symbolism at the Yangung Caves Archaeological Site in China. This is her forth exhibition at Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

 

About Morton Fine Art: 

Founded as an innovative solution to the changing contemporary art market, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that anyone can become an art collector, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of innovative exhibitions and a new generation of art services.