This September, Yu Cheng, an artist originally from Harbin, China, came to Dana Hall as the artist in residence. Cheng’s favorite part about the program was “Dana Hall’s beautiful view” as it allows her to “calm down” as well as “being able to work with teenagers”.
In her time at Dana, she worked on realism art pieces based on photographs she took of classroom and gathering spaces in Dana Hall. “I choose photos that have a lot of contrast in color to be able to create that light and shadow effect I focus on for my paintings,” she said. Additionally, she has also worked with Art Lab students on a mural based on a photo taken of the art studio near a window, where sunlight can be seen reflecting in which created shadows inside the studio. Art Lab student Ann Che 27’ said that “when we first started our classes with her, we started off blocking out colors, painting mid tones, and then afterwards everyone got assigned an area of the mural, which was made of a huge piece of fabric.”
Yu Cheng holds a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio Art and recently completed her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts University. She specializes in realism and utilizes oil, acrylic, and graphite as her media and according to her artist statement, she wants to “explore the fleeting moments in everyday life, attempting to record the trace of time by capturing the beauty of the present moment.”
“I’ve liked drawing since I was four, but I never had professional training until entering graduate school. Even in college, I majored in graphic design which had no art experience requirement to it,” she says about her interest in art. She became an artist because “Work is boring for me, but you know work is needed to afford a living. So I started thinking about what I wanted to do as a kid, and I wanted to be a painter, an artist, and so I applied to graduate school for fine art.”
According to her artist statement, “ The act of creation serves as a method of self-exploration, allowing me to gain a deeper understanding of who I am…The process of creating art is my way of delving into self-discovery, and each work guides me toward the place it is meant to exist. Through my art, I invite viewers to appreciate the beauty of simplicity and the ordinary aspects of life and to seek the beauty that can be found in everyday moments.”
“The most interesting thing I learnt from her is to not leave white spaces on your painting because it’s tempting to only take care of one area in detail and forget about the rest, ” Ann Che 27’ said.