The Sublime Beauty of Leigh Salgado and Ching Ching Cheng
The Sublime beauty of Leigh Salgado and Ching Ching Cheng
By Genie Davis
It would be hard to find two more inventive, intensely feminine, and sublimely assertive artists than Leigh Salgado and Ching Ching Cheng. You can see their work through December 3rd at Launch LA.
Los Angeles-based Salgado’s “Love in All the Right Places” is delicate lace and vivid color, images of abstract flowers and petals, intricate mixed media work that involves meticulously cutting paper with an X-Acto knife. Salgado discovered this essential aspect of her technique in the 90s when she used an X-Acto knife to cut away areas of her work that she did not like. The memories and inspiration of other women and her own feminine experience has been refined as the artist redefines what it means to be a “girl.”
Taking on the common trivializing of female objects, Salgado creates a passionate play on the all-too-frequently denigrated female image; from the attire itself to the work behind creating it. This may indeed be “women’s work,” and the undergarments depicted sensually feminine, but there is no trivialization of it, rather there is strength in the layered, enchanting beauty. There is freedom and…