Yusi Zang
Provisional holding 2025
synthetic pigeons, bird seeds, gelatine, rice glue, food preservative, chicken wire
$POA
Yusi Zang is a diasporic Chinese artist born in Beijing and based in Melbourne. Connecting the poetics of her inner thoughts with the realism of commonplace objects, Zang’s work plays with the uncanny to upset our sense of the familiar. Her paintings, sculptures, and installations transcend the banalities of existence through humorous invention, reconciling concepts of boredom and the sublime.
Zang's sculptural installation Provisional holding consists of artificial pigeon fragments partially buried in tubs of bird seed near the HAH Lorne Beach Cafe, a hub of both human and bird activity. This presentation surrounds and submerges the pigeon subjects within the very food source crucial for their survival. The artwork explores themes of parasitism within the bigger world, the survival instinct of organisms seeking food sources, and existential questions about life and existence influenced by these instincts. It also comments on the place of certain species of animal and groups of people within a given context, their acceptance and integration within environmental and social ecosystems.
Zang completed a Master of Teaching (secondary education) at Melbourne University (2022), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at Monash University (2019). Selected solo exhibitions include Yusi Zang: Paintings and Sculptures, Animal House Fine Arts, Melbourne (2023); Sometimes We Seek Truth in the Traces of Others, TCB, Melbourne (2022); Traces and Stains, Meanwhile Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2021); Altered Routine, Yusi Zang and Andre Franco, Blindside, Melbourne (2019); Flattening, C3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne (2019); Seeing is Forgetting, BUS Projects, Melbourne (2018); and The Back of a Canvas, Intermission Gallery, MADA, Melbourne (2017). Group exhibitions include Menagerie, Asbestos, Melbourne (2023); Then Sharply Turns, Conners Conners Gallery, Melbourne (2023); Family and Friends, Daine Singer Gallery, Melbourne (2019); and Gertrude Street Projection Festival, Melbourne (2019).
Yusi Zang is represented by Animal House Fine Arts.
Images: Yusi Zang, With my bum to the world 2020 (top); Yusi Zang (bottom). Courtesy the artist.
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