" This book encapsulates 10 years of my work with each project laid out in the manner in which it was originally conceived and then developed. The book title is a noun already loaded with ambiguity. With a standard definition of “foolish or silly behaviour”, tomfoolery is also a term in Cockney rhyming slang, meaning “jewellery”. For the purposes of my retrospective I wanted to create a playful tension between the two existing definitions and for me tomfoolery is redefined here as a less precious approach, implying a light touch. I see it as serious play: in other words Tomfoolery is at the heart of my objects and jewellery. "
Lin Cheung, December 2014
Lin Cheung graduated in 1997 from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery. Her work was awarded an Arts Foundation Award in 2001 and a Jerwood Contemporary Makers Award in 2008. Lin Cheung has been shortlisted for the Women’s Hour Crafts Prize in 2017 and her work is currently on display at the V&A Museum, London. She is the recipient of the prestigious Françoise van den Bosch Award 2018as well as the Herbert Hofmann Award 2018.
Lin has exhibited jewellery and objects extensively throughout the UK and internationally. In 2007, she contributed an essay for the book New Directions in Jewellery 2; in 2013 she contributed to the inaugural issue of Current Obsession and in 2012 she designed the London 2012 Paralympic Games medal.
Her work is part of the collection of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York, USA; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima), UK; The Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden; Crafts Council, London, UK; Stedelijk Museum ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Contemporary Art Society, London; The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK.
