For most of us, a “thread” is merely an ordinary object used in everyday life. For Hong Kong-based thread portrait artist Alfred Cheng however, he sees thread as his muse - his medium in which he brings to life a visual language. A thread is Cheng’s singular, exclusive tool he uses to convey his artistic vision, and his meticulous techniques present the subjects in his portraits in a stunningly realistic fashion. Cheng takes a single thread of yarn over 5,000 meters long and weaves it by hand around a circular wooden canvas frame made up of around 300 to 600 metal nails to create hyper realistic masterpieces.

The classic roles in movies have always been an important element that accompanies the growth of the public. Alfred Cheung refuses to utilize traditional painting tools and paints to create his portraits. Instead, he uses a thread and an algorithm that outlines the complex structure of the portrait. After mapping out the portrait over the canvas, Cheng then individually hammers metal nails along the perimeter of the canvas’s circular wooden frame, keeping within a precise measured guideline to keep every nail at a specific distance apart. There is little margin for error in his technique. Cheng’s portrait interprets a new dimension to the relations between algorithms and thread art, which redefines the nature of "painting".