Lexie Liu Pop Girl music video directed by Chenguang Deng
Chenguang Deng, also known as Aaron, is a renowned visual artist based in New York and Shanghai, with expertise in visual direction, graphic design, and fashion art. His latest work, the music video Pop Girl for Chinese artist Lexie Liu, marks his directorial debut and represents a significant milestone in his evolving creative career.
The video serves not only as a visual accompaniment to Liu’s single but also as a layered commentary on the manufactured ideals of pop culture and identity performance.
Pop Girl presents a surreal, media-saturated world where a young woman is drawn into the image of a hyper-feminine idol through a distorted infomercial. What begins as fascination turns into a complex internal conflict, as the protagonist moves through a process of imitation and transformation.
Eventually, she confronts and rejects the artificial persona she’s been led to embody. The visual narrative mirrors the song’s themes of tension between self-image and societal expectation, playing with the illusions embedded in fame, desirability, and media spectacle.
The production design of Pop Girl is a key element in its storytelling. Shot on three mirrored sets, the repetition in the environment echoes the recursive nature of identity formation in the digital age.
The alternating visual tones, synthetic, glittering, and unnerving, suggest the disorientation that often accompanies self-curation under public scrutiny. Commercial aesthetics are not merely used for their surface appeal; they are weaponized to question the sincerity of what they represent.
Since graduating from Parsons School of Design in 2022, Chenguang Deng has steadily expanded his influence in visual storytelling. He previously worked on music videos and fashion films in Shanghai, which provided a foundation for a more narrative-driven approach to design.
In 2023, he joined THE REAL TRAVEL AGENCY, where he contributed to projects for a global roster of music and fashion artists. This momentum carried into 2024 when he took on the role of visual director for Lexie Liu’s TOUR ’24, co-creating stage visuals that fused cross-cultural references and immersive digital design.
Chenguang Deng’s collaboration with Studio Pending further refined his graphic sensibility, contributing to album visuals for artists like Caroline Polachek and Vegyn.
However, it is Pop Girl that most distinctly showcases his emerging voice as a director who can integrate conceptual rigor with pop clarity.
The video affirms his transition from supporting roles into a leadership position in narrative visual creation, blending design, performance, and moving image into a coherent language.
By approaching identity through a fragmented lens, Chenguang Deng challenges conventional portrayals of celebrity and femininity. His work is not only visually refined but also emotionally resonant, offering a perspective that’s as critical as it is aesthetically grounded.
All images courtesy of Chenguang Deng
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