Jacky Cheng

Jacky was born in Malaysia of Chinese heritage, and now resides in Yawuru Country, Broome, WA. Her practice is fundamentally about identity and awareness through cultural activities and memories of home, country, and relationships. Her significant concerns are about correlating and weaving narratives from her native experiences whilst mapping the esoteric and social relationships of her origins and her new found home, environment, and social surroundings. Jacky’s awareness is amplified through her diasporic lens and identity as a ‘person of colour’ in foreign borders as she continues to question her notion of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ and ‘in between’ territories.

Jacky is the winner of The John Stringer Prize (2022) and The Jury Art Prize (2021); finalists in multiple art awards including the recent Fremantle Print Award (2023), National Works on Paper, VIC (2022) and 67th Blake Prize, NSW (2022). She attended residencies in Australian Tapestry Workshop, VIC (2023), SPACED (2022/ 2023), Fremantle Art Centre (2021 and 2022), Finland (2017, 2018 and 2019), Spain (2018) and Japan (2019) to further her commitment in her practice. Her collaboration with Intensive Fields Lab (iFLAB) resulted in a permanent integrated public art work titled ‘Pleated Histories’ completed in late 2022. Recently, ‘The Calling Over Nagula’ (2021) – a collaborative ephemeral public art work with Michael Jalaru Torres and Vanessa Margetts won the small project category from the WA Australian Institute of Landscape Architects Award.

Jacky is an art educator, a facilitator, and an arts worker. Her award-winning teaching accolades was recognised at the state and national Vocational Education Training (VET) sector bestowed by the Australia Training Awards (2013); a finalist for the Curtin University Teaching Excellence Award by Awards Australia (2015).

Today, Jacky continues to practice, teach, and facilitate on the lands and waters in and around Yawuru Country, Northwest of Western Australia where she lives and work since 2006.