Ji Zou

Region: MFA Annual

Website: http://ji-zou.com

City / State: Providence, RI

 I am a Hmong Chinese American artist who works primarily through painting and video art. Pulling from embodied experiences, dreams, and spiritual rituals I address themes of race, gender, sexuality, and digital identity. Through smooth, metallic renderings of form, translated from digital origins, my work holds a mirror to contemporary culture. The screaming spirit escapes a body bound by illusions of a biological clock; lovers evaporate within the embrace of each other; a dripping hand transforms the human skin into that of a metal demon.

Questioning the tangible ways in which power moves through constructions of identity, I examine how modern Western ideologies govern our relationship to the self, to the erotic, and to liberation. I draw from feminist and queer theory, neuroscience, shamanic ritual, psychoanalytic theory, and marginalized histories to inform my practice.