The Thing is Close

“The Thing is Close” exhibits the pairing of prolific Baltimore-based artists Cindy Cheng and Jackie Milad. Cheng creates complex sculptural constructions and installations that draw reference from the carefully choreographed rooms of her parents’ house in Hong Kong. Her work invokes a highly formal language to ponder the importance of objects and their ‘beneficial’ placements in the Chinese home. Gesturing toward physical spaces she has inhabited, as well as objects and things she has lived around and through, these works serve as incubators that reflect on the physical and abstract self, as well as Cheng’s own personal history and memory. Jackie Milad’s works on paper present the complexities of identity-making for people of mixed-race and ethnic backgrounds. Her work constructs a new visual language—a mash-up of actual and invented symbols associated with her Egyptian and Honduran immigrant background and family history. Combining drawing processes collaged with the cut pieces of older finished works, Milad tears away at preciousness of history to reveal another story—one that is not fixed, and yet uniquely her own.