HAOYUN ERIN ZHAO

Haoyun Erin Zhao’s colourful, sensuous paintings seem to come alive on the picture plane. These paintings and large-scale installation-style works are playful and controlled, and Zhao’s Chinese heritage takes a crucial role in the mythology she explores through colour, composition, and the meaning imbued in and within the work.

Hailing from Guiyang, China, and now living in San Francisco, Zhao’s work is deeply rooted in the coalescing ideas of Eastern and Western Philosophy. The works house a sort of refined balance, wherein ideas and subject matter take shape in the eye of the viewer. There is a line in John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Women that echoes a famous quote by Picasso, wherein the protagonist speaks about looking through “diaphanous fabric” – “what you see depends on where you are standing;” and a similar sort of trickery is at play here, where shapes, colour, meaning, and light depend on subtle trickery and refinery by Zhao’s masterful stroke but also ask the viewer to take pause, to appreciate the finesse and technique utilized herein.

Working in printmaking and also sculptural installation, Zhao’s work seems more concerned about the act and idea rather than the specific media employed. However, her paintings suggest a Zen, or meditative process, where the work and the act of making the work are about achieving that flow state. The works are melodious, too, reminiscent of Kandinsky or Sonia Delauney, but their beauty is in Zhao’s careful hand and reductive, respectful approach to her practice and the act, and art, of making. 

HAOYUN ERIN ZHAO (b. 1991, Guiyang, China) currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. Zhao graduated from Academy of Art University in 2015.

Solo exhibitions include: Puzzle Play, Nielsen Arts, Berkeley, USA (2021).

Group exhibitions include: Keepsake, Uprise Art, New York, USA (2023); The de Young Open, de Young Museum / Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA (2023); Language of Form, Heron Arts, San Francisco, USA (2023); After Dark: Sharing Places, Exploratorium Museum, San Francisco, USA (2023); Tinguely Museum, Basel, Switzerland (2022); Atelier Mondial, Basel, Switzerland (2022); In Essence, Glass Rice Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2022); Neon Was Never Brighter, Contemporary Art Festival, San Francisco, USA (2022); Embodiment, Heron Arts, San Francisco, USA (2022); The August Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2022); Skate, Minus Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2022); Palette Cleanser, Palette Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2022); Tiny, Studio Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2021); Community, Glass Rice Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2021); Spell of the Senses, Root Division, San Francisco, USA (2021).

Fairs include: ART Sante Fe, Jen Tough Gallery, Santa Fe, USA (2019).