Bio
Zhan Zhang is a Toronto and Shanghai based visual artist known for her soft sculptures and paper art animations, which possess a fragile and otherworldly quality. In the same way of “line drawing”, paper cutting is broken into the smallest unit in the medium - the cuts - an attempt to place this often-dismissed form and material in a broader cultural context, re-imagine the function of tactile practices in the contemporary environment of information overload and collective memories.
In Zhang's art, valid reality is sincerely replaced with strange combinations of objects and events. Inanimate and animate things assume similar characters through convergence. The distorted forms embody delicacy and precision, put viewers inside a moment to experience the dreams and unconscious, the loneliness and confusion, and the divinity in a single glance, and question the reality surrounding us.
Zhang’s work has been exhibited at L.L. Contemporary Gallery (Richmond Hill, ON), Tom Thomson Art Gallery (Owen Sound, ON), Artspace (Peterborough, ON), Latcham Art Centre (Whitchurch-Stouffville, ON), Cedar Ridge Gallery (Scarborough, ON), Japanese Canadian Cultural Center (East York, ON) and fairs such as Art Toronto.
Zhang obtained double Honors B.A. majors in Visual Arts and Arts Management from the University of Toronto, and 3D Animation Post Graduate Degree from Seneca College.
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Education
2012 Honors B.A. Major in Visual Arts and Specialist in Arts Management (Double Majors)
University of Toronto, Toronto
2017 Post Graduate Degree, Major in 3D Animation and Media Arts
Seneca College, Toronto
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2026 (Forthcoming) Solo Show, Cedar Ridge Gallery, Scarborough
2025 Solo Show: Out of Sight, Out of Mind, L.L.Contemporary Gallery, Richmond Hill
2024 Full Room Installation: Polycoria, Sculpture and Video Installations, IDFK Art Studio, Toronto
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 (Forthcoming), 11059 Cuts, Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, Sarnia, ON
2026 World PUP, Gallery 1065, Toronto, ON
2026 Annual Juried Exhibition 2026, Latcham Art Centre, Whitchurch-Stouffville, ON
2026 Artsu Matsuri, Japanese Canadian Cultural Center, East York, ON
2025 Mini-Mini, Artspace, Peterborough, ON
2025 Convergence, Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
2025 Tradition Transformed, Orillia Museum of Art & History, Orillia
2025 Resistant Fibers,Textile Installation, Canada Council for the Arts, Âjagemô Exhibition Space, Ottawa
2025 Annual Juried Exhibition 2025, Jury's Award 3rd Place, Latcham Art Centre, Whitchurch-Stouffville
2024 What a Wonderful Year, L. L. Contemporary Gallery, Richmond hill
2024 All The Small Things, Northern Contemporary Gallery, Toronto
2024 Community Art Project: Wearable Arts, 3rd Children's Art Festival of "The kindergarten Without Walls", Haikou
2024 Wearable Arts Installations, U of T Charitable Fashion Show, University of Toronto, Toronto
Selected Art Fairs
2025 Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Toronto
Selected Grants
2025 Exhibition Assistance Grant, Ontario Arts Council
Artist Apprentice
2015 Artist Assistant to Yael Brotman, Toronto
2014 Internship at Phillip Beesley's Studio, Toronto