TOUCH FREQUENCIES:
Amy Cheng & Avani Patel
Feb 7 – 28, 2026
Opening Reception: Sat, Feb 7, 6 – 8 pm
Artist Talk: Sat., Feb. 21, 3 – 5 pm
PS122 Gallery is pleased to present Touch Frequencies, an exhibition featuring two Asian- American abstract painters who use a visual vocabulary infused with patterning, repetition, and ornamentation. Their penchant for working this way aligns them more with Eastern and Middle Eastern art in contrast to the Greek and Roman-based Western art tradition that emphasizes the primacy of the figure in painting. Pattern, repetition, and ornamentation are endemic in nature — it is in fact, how nature is structured — and are primal in their rhythmic connection to the human nervous system.
Although Cheng and Patel share a love of abstraction and ornamentation, their focus and approach diverge in meaningful ways: Cheng works at the intersection of science, art, and ancient philosophies to explore the mysteries of the universe at both macro and micro levels. She paints what exists but cannot be seen. She focuses on the hard question of consciousness — something people assume is generated by brains — yet current science is discovering that consciousness may be fundamental, part of the fabric of the universe, that allows access by all
living beings, whether microbial, vegetal, aquatic, animal, or human. In contrast, Patel’s work is rooted in the human and cultural realm, drawing from ecology, memory, and the sensory joy of color and material. Rooted in memories of her parents’ garden in India and the U.S., her work explores belonging amid urban change and how materials embody emotion, history, and renewal. By merging personal memory with ecological and cultural imagery, she honors the interdependence of nature and culture to inspire viewers to see and interpret the world anew. By merging personal memory with ecological and cultural imagery, she creates spaces for pause, tenderness, and reconnection.
ARTISTS
Amy Cheng lives and works in New York City. She was born in Taiwan, raised in Brazil, Oklahoma, and Texas. She is a widely exhibited painter who maintains a parallel career in public art. Her paintings and works on paper are held in a number of corporate and public collections including the Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, Sheraton Hotels, Brussels, Belgium, Florida- Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia, PA, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, and Hewlett-Packard, San Francisco, CA. She has completed a dozen permanent commissions fabricated in mosaic, glass, ceramic, terrazzo and more. These include projects at the Seattle-Tacoma Int’l Airport, WA, the Howard St. El Station, Chicago, IL, the 25 th Avenue Subway Station, Brooklyn, NY, and Western State Hospital, Lakewood, WA. She has received two New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowships, a
Senior Research/Lecture Fulbright to USP, São Paulo, Brazil, and a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship at Renmin University, Beijing, China. She is a Professor Emerita of the Art Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
www.amychengstudio.com
@amycheng.studio
Avani Patel, born in Mumbai, India in 1976, immigrated with her family to Pennsylvania at the age of eleven. She holds a BA from Pennsylvania State University and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Patel’s paintings have been exhibited widely across the United States and internationally. From 2003 to 2006, her work was shown at the American Embassy’s ambassador residence in Panama, where she also led community workshops and collaborative installations. In 2005, she was invited to the White House by Laura Bush and Colin Powell in recognition of her participation in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program. Patel has contributed to significant public art initiatives, including America’s Chinatown Voices in New York City and a public art project in Lillestrøm, Norway. Her work has been reviewed and featured in Hyperallergic, Artnet, and The Woven Tale Press, and is held in private and corporate collections in the United States and abroad. In 2025, she was selected for the ArtBridge and CAMBA Affordable Housing public art project in Brooklyn. Patel lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
https://www.avanirpatel.com @unique_avani