itit Cheung: Tomorrow, the Tide Will Rise Again

Things change shape before they disappear, as ice becomes water. What is kept can outlast what it once held. Underwater, time moves differently. Breath no longer holds itself back; it keeps its own rhythm now, steady, regular, and even, marking the minutes rather than holding them. _Tomorrow, the Tide Will Rise Again_ is a solo exhibition by itit Cheung, built from the bodily experience of time spent submerged in water and the quiet persistence of ordinary things. Beneath its surface is a question the artist asks of himself, as much as of anyone who enters: what keeps us moving forward, when so much of what moves us cannot be named. Cheung works from a simple belief. Ordinary things carry more presence than they appear to; quietly, they hold what we cannot say outright. The exhibition does not illustrate grief or memory. It creates the conditions in which they can be felt. What holds it together is a single observation. Loss does not end, it changes form; things can be held past their ending. The sea has always risen and fallen, gently, for the moon; and now, it is also rising for other reasons. Perhaps this is the most honest shape we have for how we carry what we cannot put down. The moon pulls the tide without the tide ever knowing why.