About John Enger Cheng

Discovery

John Enger Cheng (b.1986, Torrance, California, USA) is a Taiwanese American artist who studied under the instruction of Janice Urnstein Weissman and received his BA in Fine Arts from the University of Southern California, Roski School of Fine Arts in 2009.

In John’s paintings, youthful figures in hoodies and t-shirts converse in intense chiaroscuro baroque tableaux. Aboriginal Taiwanese tattoo motifs are put into conversation with biblical stories, streetwear brands and hallmarks of asian popular culture.

In 2010, he was deeply inspired by Caravaggio’s The Calling of Saint Matthew, especially his way of reframing ancient stories using modern clothing and settings.

John’s work resides at the intersection of cultural identity and faith, questioning what it means to belong. His paintings and drawings are attempts to piece together the fragments of memory past: a tumultuous cultural heritage mired with occupation, colonization, and erasure; dissonant Taiwanese and American footholds; and life as a sojourner in this world from a faith perspective. His narratives are akin to a fractured clay pot reassembled from the broken remnants of other vessels, with faith as the mortar mending the cracks between pieces that have been awkwardly joined together —something familiar yet distant.

In 2021, his work was inducted into the permanent collection of Taiwanese Art Treasures Preserved Overseas – The Homecoming Exhibition of the Sun Ten Collection at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

He currently resides in Southern California with his wife, son, and dog Lilo.

Everything is grey and muddy. I have a red-green and yellow-blue color deficiency, which poses a unique challenge to understanding color theory. This often leads to unexpected results when it comes to color mixing, often resulting in colors that could be describe as muddled, but it also pushes me to embrace high-contrast, dramatic lighting. I primarily use the Zorn palette with the addition of paynes grey to emulate chiaroscuro in the tableaux that I paint.

In a similar way, I have often felt that my ethnic heritage has been “muddled” by the weight of colonization, occupation, dilution, and erasure. Growing up as a Taiwanese American added more grey to the mix – not Asian enough, not American enough.

I once assumed that faith would provide clearer distinctions - black and white truths - but I found it added even more grey when confronted with hardened hearts of people.

I paint and create to clarify, remix, and redefine.

John Enger Cheng

Statement