Introducing Cindie Cheung...

by Lavanya Trichinopoly – Krishna

Wandering along Charing Cross Road on a dreary afternoon, artist Cindie Cheung is chatty and telling me about her weekend.

But safe from the cold in a busy Starbucks in the heart of London, Cheung eyes the camera nervously before sitting down, the reason for which becomes clear later, when she tells the photographer: “I don’t like photos of myself. I prefer to be behind the camera.”

Cheung is the recent winner of the first Future Map Prize, which showcased cutting-edge artists from all six University of the Arts London (UAL) colleges, and earned her a chance to make a limited edition piece for the 176/Zabludowicz Collection as well as a £3000 prize.

“I haven’t spent all the money yet! That’d be awful!” Cheung exclaims.

Asked what she has done with her winnings, she says: “I’ve put the money into a separate account so that I only spend it on my next projects, and hopefully it’ll last for maybe a few."

Future projects

"I’ve spent a little bit on the materials I want to use for the next project – for the next film I’m doing – so it’s still there in my account.”

Softly-spoken Cheung won the Future Map prize by wowing judges with her two films, Untitled and One Girl in Office, with Coca Cola.

The latter film portrays a girl who carves a straight line into a desk repetitively accompanied by music by a Los Angeles-based friend of Cheung’s, Dominic Tiberio, also known as Felt Drawings, and is the project Cheung is most proud of to date.

“When I was studying I was interested in so many different things – a bit of performance, a bit of object-based, a bit of film."

"For this I did feel I managed to combine all those things in one space.”

Cheung is collaborating with Tiberio again on her current project – a video piece for which she is also working with a tailor in Denmark who’ll be making clothes she has designed.

“It’s gonna be filmed on green screen so that I can manipulate it quite a lot – much more than I’ve done before.”

Though not all of Cheung’s work is collaborative, she revels in working with others while making her video artworks.

“Working with video has been really amazing because it’s such a collaborative process. You can do things on your own, but it’s so complicated that you have to be involved with other people, and that’s the great thing about it."

"Being an artist can be a really lonely thing, but it’s amazing that you can surround yourself with people who are skilled in different things, like musicians and technicians.”

Perhaps it’s the interview situation that is intimidating her, but Cheung seems tense, thinking carefully before giving her answers and keeping them to the point.

The focal point of Cheung’s artwork is women in moving image, and she takes inspiration from her interest in film noir and femme fatales, but also cites her interest in clichés as integral to her work, turning them into a “distancing device”.

Current work

“I guess what I’m trying to do is sort of clichés of clichés. It’s using the similar core, but making a slight difference. You’re looking at something that’s a cliché, but the slight difference makes it a little awkward.”

When asked about why she chose art, Cheung hesitates: “It’s difficult, without sounding really cheesy,” she smiles.

Cheung had many interests, including dance and music production, which made her choice difficult, until she realised that she wanted to be creating something herself.

“I think I started feeling like I didn’t want to be doing someone else’s thing, and had my own ideas of what I wanted to do.”

Graduating last year from Chelsea College of Art with a BA in Fine Art, Cheung recalls that although at times the “freedom” at the college felt overwhelming, it helped her become the artist she is today, but also cites the tutors and the students on her course as inspiration.

“I just happened to be in a really great year where everybody supported each other and got along. I think that’s the really important thing about studying art because the people you get to know, you’re going to know, like, forever.”

However, Cheung advises current students to “take chances” and not get bogged down in the theory of a course.

“It’s important not to worry about the outcome too much – not the outcome of the course, but the outcome of each individual project.

"You’re really encouraged in art schools to be really conceptual and to think so much about things that it can sometimes kill the idea, so it’s materialising something before it fizzles out.

“It’s a fact of life. Everything you experience and everyone you meet influences the way that you see things and how you materialise it"

"When you sit down and look at your work and kind of evaluate where you’ve come from and what you’ve done it becomes really obvious to yourself as well."

"For other people especially as well if they really know you they can see it as well, I mean with the dance stuff and the music I was doing before…I can see that was all worth doing now because I can use it for something.”

Although she already produces artwork in formats other than film, Cheung would like to branch out more into photography: “I’ve always been interested in this idea of creating moments specifically for the camera."

"I think it’s interesting to work with photography as a parallel to video.”

Current studies

Currently studying an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, Cheung is focused on the present, not the future.

“I’m just trying to become an artist now. I don’t hope to change the world or anything. I just want to be able to have the freedom to do my art.”

It’s clear that Cheung just wants to do her own thing, as she sternly states: “The world is not a competition. I don’t feel like I have to sell myself.”