shoulder to shoulder since birth

Made during Cheung's 2025 HKOP Award residency at the Print Lab at JCCAC, this soft-ground etching takes its title from the bond between siblings whose lives have run parallel from infancy. The phrase suggests two figures depicted in close proximity — likely a paired or doubled portrait — rendered through the textural, drawing-like marks that soft-ground etching is known for. In this technique, the plate is coated with a pliable wax-based ground that records the pressure of paper, fabric, or pencil, yielding lines softer than hard-ground etching and surfaces that can hold cloth weaves, fingerprints, or skin-like grain. These tactile qualities suit Cheung's recurring concerns: the body, kinship, and the way familial closeness leaves physical traces. The work belongs to the small-scale, autobiographical practice she has developed at CUHK and HKOP, in which intaglio's intimacy of scale matches the introspective subject matter, and where the print operates as an object of personal reflection rather than public statement.