Alum DeWitt Cheng is Curator of Stanford Art Spaces

PALO ALTO ONLINE -- Not content to just study art, Cheng also decided to try his hand at painting and drawing. He earned a Master’s degree from San Francisco State in the mid-1980s and took a position teaching art for UC Berkeley Extension. All the while, he paid the bills by doing graphics for computer companies. It quickly became apparent that he enjoyed writing about art more than teaching about it, so he made the shift to freelance writing and art criticism. When the curator position for Stanford Art Spaces opened in 2013, he was a natural choice. Cheng is a champion for local artists, whom he feels are often “underrepresented and underserved” by the gallery and museum establishment. Years of both displaying his own art and writing about other artists have resulted in a large network of friends and colleagues. This is the well that he taps into when curating exhibitions for Stanford Art Spaces. "Stanford Art Spaces provides a much-needed venue for mid-career artists," Cheng said.