Electric Dreams, 2018

Electric dreams depicts Shenzhen, rendered in sand. Within 15 years, Shenzhen grew from a fishing village into a sprawling city now known as the Silicon Valley of China. Cheung renders the landscape using a Google Earth perspective, resulting in an artificially distorted map due to the fact that western commercial satellites are not permitted to monitor certain areas of mainland China. In the foreground of the painting lies the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong that China is proposing to dissolve, accelerating the merger of identities and cultures. The floating landscape in the top half of the painting amalgamates two paintings from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, hovering within a neon utopia. The title Electric Dreams is borrowed from Philip K Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, on which the film Bladerunner is based – both sources of inspiration within Cheung’s oeuvre.