Ji Zou
e: azou@risd.edu
ig: ji.zouu
Practice
Hmong Chinese American artist practicing painting, illustration, and sometimes video art. Often thinking about the fragility of reality, the connection between waking and dream worlds, what is invisible but felt, what is self, and what it means to love. Their practice is diaristic and self reflexive and often draws from meditations, dreams, memories, and imagined futures. Through their work, they seek to get closer— closer to others, closer to being, closer to truth— by recognition of the ever present gaps and voids.
Biography
Raised in suburban Michigan, they grew up in a cross cultural, polygynous family. During their undergraduate studies in Neuroscience and Sociology, they became interested in meditation practices introduced to them by professors and friends. In their first 10 day silent meditation, painting was the only thing they could think of. Shortly after, they moved to New York City and began to work in commercial illustration and the restaurant industry. They continued to experiment as a digital painter for 6 years before attending Rhode Island School of Design for their MFA in illustration.
Since beginning their painting practice in 2022, their work has been presented widely in group exhibitions at Collaborations, Copenhagen; The Hole, New York; Vardan Gallery, LA; and more. They were awarded the Presidential Fellowship at RISD (2022) and published as the cover artist of New American Paintings (165).