Gordon Cheung’s Still Life paintings replace vases housing flowers from the Dutch Still Life tradition with ornamental Chinese dragon pots. The vases are positioned as if grandiose monuments atop landscapes that have historically been harnessed by civilization for power — urban, political, or geographical — to interrogate the trajectory of China’s transition to authoritarian capitalism.

Through this subversion of the Still Life tradition, Cheung seeks to unveil what is already embedded in the genre. Dutch Golden Age Still Lifes appear innocuous but reflect the dark history of colonial conquest in their collection of fruit, flowers, and objects acquired forcibly through slavery carried out across Asia and Africa, and the desire to flaunt the wealth, power, and status accrued from it. By combining imagery from Dutch Still Life and Chinese calligraphic and ink painting traditions, these paintings evince the history of colonial sovereigns in the Far East.

Combining inkjet printing methods, acrylic paint, and sand to create a variety of textures and three-dimensional features, Cheung’s flowers appear to delicately float across ethereal surfaces. He assembles each bloom by applying thick paint onto plastic that can be peeled off when dry and collaged onto the canvas. He is interested in what he calls the “Ozymandian eventuality” of grandeur and power to physically and metaphorically crumble over time, using sand to represent impermanence and the constantly shifting nature of the human condition.