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Pieces of My Mind, Night / Nebula Series
Watercolor Paper, Craft Paper
Size Varies
2025


Built on the ideology of "Pieces of My Mind, Pale" series, the new series digs deep into inner dark/colorful thoughts and connections between the ideas, connections built unconsciously, and the inevitable mutation of the thoughts as time goes by. Childhood's little "lanterns" constraints and protect the fragments of thoughts throughout years of personal experiences, and eventually burst into a nebula. Every sharp and pointy piece one cut off from their own personality for the sake of blending into social norms eventually came back, attached to themselves, dragged along and became the weapon and tentacle to reach new edges. 

 

Pieces of My Mind, Pale
Watercolor Paper, Craft Paper
Each Individual Piece 4.5x4.5", Installation Size Varies
2024

There is the saying "The truly wise hide in plain sight" that inspired this piece, which investigates what we choose to perceive and thus remember, and what we allow to be unseen and forgotten. In a time when cultural narratives are often rewritten or erased, these sculptures stand as tactile symbols to hidden stories and silenced voices.

Visually innovative and enjoyable, the loose works can be freely reorganized, offering endless possibilities. Though in futuristic sculptural forms, each piece carries a backstory rooted in personal lived experience and heritage, responding to childhood memories of paper lantern making, as well as broader issues such as migration, displacement, and identity.  The surreal versions of “lantern” looking structures is both the cage and shelter of the stories and thoughts. The crowded installation view reminds viewers where individuals belong or choose to engage with.

Migration
Watercolor Paper, Craft Paper
Each Individual Piece between 2x2" to 4.5x4.5", Installation Size Varies
2025

 

As part of a fluid, large-scale installation, each paper sculpture features a light, self-sustaining structure that can withstand pressure and falls, while simultaneously extending outward with fragile spikes that embody the contradictions that emerge from within the self. Each cut-off piece becomes an independent figure, then magically returns to its original place, being reattached to oneself.


Presenting a kind of loneliness in a crowded place allows the paper sculpture to create a certain mood or emotion in a simple way. Viewers often read these individual paper sculptures as surreal “creatures” that flies and migrate together, forming an uncertain path. The installation as a collective system portrayed a tendency of unrelated animals and plants to evolve superficially similar characteristics under similar environmental conditions.

The Ripple Series
Watercolor Paper, Craft Paper
Each Individual Piece 4.5x4.5", Installation Size Varies
2025

 

The language of Eastern culture is subtle, often holding back words or leaving them unsaid, like a string of ellipses on a wall—reserved yet aloof, shy yet restrained. People sometimes describe this state of mind as ripples in the heart, as if a single drop of water disturbs the tranquil surface.

The Bento Box Series
Watercolor Paper, Craft Paper, Other Cutout Materials
Installation Size Varies
2025

A Japanese-style lunchbox composed of a series of art materials, potentially containing fragments of large-scale installations from different eras and materials, or perhaps holding creative ideas nearing completion. This interactive installation is not meant to be hung on walls but appears randomly on various surfaces within the environment. Viewers feel an impulse to pick it up, select pieces, and use them—as if briefly owning them or becoming part of a larger artwork.

Under The Moonlight
Watercolor Paper, Craft Paper
10x 15'
2023


In View, Under The Moonlight was a Toronto Nuit Blanche associated project in responding to curatorial vision of viewing the East York community and neighborhood from a fresh and mythical perspective. The surreal pieces portrays a hare seeing out from an owl's eyes in the lush forest in the neighborhood, putting viewer inside life of wild creatures and imagine their livings. 

© 2025 by Zhan Zhang. 

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