Olivia Cheng
Artist Bio
Olivia Cheng has been a Portland resident almost her whole life and currently attends high school at St. Mary’s Academy as part of the class of 2025. While she devotes part of her time to the Water Tiger movement, Cheng also enjoys her time spent as a student-athlete, with her family, and playing with her two cats and dog. Ever since a young age Olivia has loved city-wide events such as the Rose Festival, Starlight Parade, and Waterfront Blues Festival. As a proud fan of the Portland Thorns, she represents a new generation of Portland youth. In order to restore life and activities in the heart of the city, Cheng believes that the participation of younger Portland residents is key. Olivia uses her art and creativity as a personal effort to help the city she calls home, striving to create what she thinks of as a “bat-signal” aimed at bringing positivity and spirit back into the City of Portland.
Piano: “Water Tiger”
I was tremendously grateful to create a piece centered around resilience and hope that would be seen by so many people. I actually had no idea what to put on the piano, but I rolled with it and let inspiration take me wherever it wanted to go. While I may not have started with a particularly defined vision of what art would eventually come, that changed when I laid my hands on the piano for the first time. I guess I had always viewed the instrument as a tool for music, but not necessarily a source for inspiration itself.
I ended up free-handing (and free-styling) the whole thing. I didn't trace, stencil, or project anything onto the instrument; I wanted to experience the connection between paint and piano firsthand. I let my ideas flow freely onto my musical canvas, ending up with something both entirely predictable and yet also brand new, another Water Tiger. There was intention behind each component, the stripes to be dynamic and fine-lined, the blue to overlap and lay like a settling wave. I wanted the image to be one that emulated both strength and aspiration, with the tiger looking at you, but also past you.
I hope that the message comes across to those who are able to view this piano, that courage may carry us through hard times, but dreams will guide us after. I've worried that this idea might get muddied in translation from Olivia-to-Piano and from Piano-to-You, but in the end I think the interpretation each individual makes of this piece is perhaps even more valuable than whatever objective originally set; I wish for this piano to inspire you in the same way it has inspired me.