Alex Huanfa Cheng

Alex Huanfa Cheng is a Paris-based photographer born in rural Hubei, China in 1988. He moved to Paris in 2012 to study contemporary art photography at ENSBA (L’école nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris), graduating with an MFA in Photography in 2017. Prior to this, he earned a BA in Digital Media Technology from the University of Communication of China (2007-2012). Cheng’s most significant body of work is “Chinese Wonderland,” a long-term documentary project capturing the surreal landscapes and daily life of contemporary China during rapid modernization. The project examines contradictions, authenticity, and the particularity of ordinary people, documenting graffiti as a metaphor for China’s ambivalence. His work has been exhibited internationally including PhotoVogue Festival 2023 (Milan), solo exhibition at Unpaper Gallery Berlin (2021), Promenades Photographiques Festival (2020), BNF Paris (2019), and Aperture Foundation New York (2019). In 2019, Cheng won the Bourse du Talent award for his series “Maternity” (Maternité), which documented his wife Zhiyu during pregnancy through portraits and still-life metaphors. This ongoing project of photographing his partner since 2013 explores themes of intimacy, transformation, and domestic life. Cheng’s photography celebrates eccentricity, finding beauty in the disjunction between human activity and natural landscapes. His work has been published in It’s Nice That and featured on LensCulture. He is represented by We Are The Agent and maintains his portfolio at chenghuanfa.com. Cheng’s approach focuses on genuine rapport with subjects, improvising spontaneously to reveal true character rather than imposing preconceived concepts.