Amy Cheng is a New York City-based visual artist. She was born in Taiwan, raised in Brazil, Oklahoma, and Texas, and is a widely exhibited painter who maintains a parallel career in public art. She received a BFA in Painting from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College, City University of New York. Her paintings and works on paper are held in a number of corporate and public collections, including the Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, Sheraton Hotels, Brussels, Belgium, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia, PA, New York University Langone Medical Center, and Hewlett-Packard, San Francisco. She has completed a dozen permanent commissions fabricated in mosaic, glass, ceramic, terrazzo and more. These include projects at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, WA, the Howard Street El Station, Chicago, IL, the 25^th Avenue Subway Station, Brooklyn, NY, and Western State Hospital, Tacoma, WA. She has received two New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowships, a Senior Research/Lecture Fulbright to USP, São Paulo, Brazil, and a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship at  Renmin University, Beijing, China. She is a Professor Emerita of the Art Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

 

Statement

I build complex worlds that move between the astral macro and the subatomic micro all at once. I paint what exists but is unseeable — the invisible forces that bind and animate life. What draws me is the hard problem of consciousness: that most fundamental and still-unanswered question of where awareness comes from, how we access it, and whether, as physicist Federico Faggin and others propose, consciousness is not generated by matter but is the very substrate from which matter arises, a concept ancient Indian Vedic philosophy has held for thousands of years. In this way my paintings sit at the intersection of empirical science, Western philosophy, and ancient Ayurvedic thought.

 

My layered acrylic gouache and oil marker paintings on wood panel are densely packed with shifting space, movement, and vibrating energy. Rather than illustrating consciousness, I use flowers as embodiments of its essence — enlivening, buoyant, life-affirming—and construct around them an invented abstract world of biological and geometrical forms, pattern, repetition, and ornamentation,

 

My love of pattern and decoration is both innate and cultural. My nervous system has always resonated with the ornamentation, rhythm, and repetition so pervasive in Far Eastern and Middle Eastern art — a visual language I now use to ask questions science has yet to answer.

 

 

CV

 

SELECTED PUBLIC COMMISSIONS

2026         Pallmystery, terrazzo lobby floor for Broward County Property Assessment Office, Fort Lauderdale, FL

                 commissioned by Broward County Cultural Division, Public Art & Design

2021         Worlds Within Worlds, laminated glass windscreens for four Streetcar Stations + seating and ceiling

                 designs for Gold Lynx streetcars, commissioned by Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte, NC

2020         Nature Provides, mosaic, glass + brass mural at Western State Hospital, Lakewood, WA.,

                 commissioned by Arts Washington

2015         Big Skies, printed vinyl traffic boxes located at four downtown street corners, Odessa, TX,

                 commissioned by the Odessa Council for the Arts & Humanities

2015         Beyond the Biosphere, two printed vinyl canopies, Slauson bus station, Los Angeles, CA,

                 commissioned by Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

2013         Celestial Playground, mosaic + brass sheeting mural, Jacksonville International Airport,

                 Jacksonville, FL, commissioned by Jacksonville Aviation Authority

2013         Nucleic Life Formation, two ceramic tile murals, Lambert-St. Louis Int’l Airport, St. Louis, MO,

                 commissioned by Metro St. Louis

2012         Rediscovery, four laminated glass windscreens, 25th Avenue Subway Station, Brooklyn, NY,

                 commissioned by New York Metropolitan Transit Authority Arts for Transit

2009         Destination: Points Unknown, hand-painted ceramic tile mural, Howard Street El Station, Chicago, IL

                 commissioned by Chicago Transit Authority Arts in Transit

2007         Las Flores, seven faceted glass windscreens, Cleveland Street Subway Station, Brooklyn, NY,

                 commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit

2004         In Memory of My Father, mosaic column, Terminal A, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

                 Commissioned by Port of Seattle, Seattle, WA

2002         Looking Through the Layers of Time, oil-painted Dibond panels, P.S. 58, The School of Heroes,

                 Maspeth, NY, commissioned by NYC Public Art for Public Schools,

 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024        Summer Spotlight, Equity Gallery, New York, NY

2022        Spheres and SinoSpheres, Volker Orth Museum, Queens, NY

2015        Breathing Lessons, Plattsburg State Art Museum, Plattsburgh, NY

2013        Irrational Exuberance, Tower Fine Art Gallery, University of New York at Brockport, NY

2010        Evidence of Things Unseen, Turchin Center for Visual Art, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC

2005        Amy Cheng: Paintings, Moreau Gallery, St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN

2000        Open Your Art and Soul, Art & Soul Gallery, Boulder, CO

2001        Amy Cheng: Paintings, Art & Soul Gallery, Boulder, CO

1998        Present Perfect, Gallery 456, New York, NY

1997        I Shock Myself, Penny Liebman Contemporary Art, New York, NY

1997        Unified Field Theory, Marist College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY

1997        The Journey Home, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA

1992        The Barbarians Are Coming, C&A Gallery, New York, NY

1991        Amy Cheng: Paintings, The Harrison Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2026       Touch Frequencies: Amy Cheng and Avani Patel, P.S. 122 Gallery, New York, NY

2025       Salon Zurcher: 100 Women of Spirit, Part 3, a satellite of the Armory Fair, Zürcher Gallery, New York, NY

2025       Select 2025, Garvey Simon Gallery, New York, NY

2025       Art on Paper Fair, Elza Kayal Gallery, New York, NY

2025       Geography of Destiny, Solas Studio, New York, NY

2025       Home Is Where the Heart Is, Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY

2024       Perspectives: Six Artists, The Gallery at Spencertown Academy, Spencertown, NY

2023       Process and Delight: The New P & D, Equity Gallery, New York, NY

2023       A Point in Time and Space, West Strand Gallery, Kingston, NY

2022       Matrixes Small Works, Kate Oh Gallery, New York, NY

2018       Meditations in Color: Richard Carter & Amy Cheng, 1801 California, Denver, CO

2018       Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, (juried by Jean Shin), University Art Museum, SUNY at Albany, NY

2017       Mandalas: Structured and Unstructured, William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

2015       Color, Mary Tomás Gallery, Dallas, TX

2014       Geometric Repetition, Mary Tomás Gallery, Dallas, TX

2014       The Reason for Beauty, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA

 

SELECTED CORPORATE, MUSEUM AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, Banyan Primera, Lake Mary, FL, Montefiore Einstein Fine Art Collection, The Bronx, NY, Chevron Corporation, San Ramon, CA, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Collegeville, PA, United States State Department, U.S. Embassy, Kazakhstan, Sheraton Hotels, Brussels, Belgium, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia, PA, Lang Communications, New York, NY, King County Public Art Collection, Seattle, WA, Hewlett-Packard, San Francisco, CA, Florida-Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, WAM Singapore, Sam Houston University, Huntsville, TX, University Hospital, San Antonio, TX, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT, Kingston Hospital, Kingston, NY

 

SELECTED GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS

2023       FST Studios Project Fund

2017       Fulbright Lecture Fellowship, Art Department Painting Graduate Program, Renmin Univ. of China, Beijing, PRC

2011       Studio Artist Space Program, PS 122 Studios, New York, NY

2008       Fulbright Senior Lecture/Research grant to Brazil, Visiting Professor, Graduate Painting Program, São

               Paulo, SP, Brazil

2005       Contemplative Practice Fellowship, the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, North Hampton, MA

1996       New York Foundation for the Art, Painting Fellowship

1994        Arts International Travel Grant to China

1990        New York Foundation for the Arts, Painting Fellowship

 

SELECTED ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Carter Burden Covello Center (Jan-Mar 2009), Constance Saltonstall Foundation Ithaca, NY (2011), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA (2011, 2007, 2006, 2005), McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, NC (Jan-Mar 2009), Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, IL (2009, 2007), Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2005), Fundacion Valparaiso, Mojacar, Spain (1999), The Millay Colony, Austerliltz, NY (1997), MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH (1992, 1989), Yaddo Corporation, Saratoga Springs, NY (1990)

 

SELECTED TEACHING

2020-present — Professor Emerita, Art Department, The State University of New York at New Paltz. (Professor from 2004-2020, Associate Professor,                             from 1999-2004, Assistant Professor from 1997-1999)

1990-1997 — Assistant Professor, Art Department, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 

1989-1990 —Lecturer, Art Department, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (1989-1990)

 

PUBLICATION

Amy Cheng, “Learning to See: A Fulbright Semester Teaching Painting in Beijing.” 57-67, in Narrative Inquiries From Fulbright Lecturers in China: Cross-Cultural Connections in Higher Education, edited by Shin Freedman, Pat Munday and Jeannette W. Cockcroft. Routeledge, 2019.

 

PANELS & JURIES

2012          Visual Arts Editor for the Stone Canoe, Vol. 7, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

2010          Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit Program juror for the Metro North Tarrytown Station, Tarrytown, New York

2004          New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program juror for the Department of Transportation project located 

                  in the Sunrise section of Queens, New York

2003          Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Maryland State Arts Council Painting Fellowship Jury Panel hosted by the Mid Atlantic Arts

                  Foundation, Baltimore, MD

2002          The Millay Art Colony, Austerlitz, NY, juror for residency applicants

2000          Conversation hosted by The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, led by Carol Becker and Michael Brenson, funded by the

                 Rockefeller Foundation, to discuss establishing a center for the study of art and artists in society.

1999          Ooh Ahh… Oh! Arts Now 1999, co-director of art conference sponsored by The School of Fine and  Performing Arts,

                 State of New York at New Paltz on the topic of art and audience

1997-99    Working Group on the Arts and Humanities, Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, Fordham Graduate Center, sponsored

                 by the Rockefeller Foundation

 

EDUCATION

1982     M.F.A. Painting, Hunter College, City University of New York

1978     B.F.A. Painting, University of Texas at Austin