Hedy Zhang, born in 1994 in Xi’an, China and based in New York, challenges societal norms through performance and painting. With a BFA in Fine Arts and Gender Studies from Parsons School of Design, her work has been showcased in exhibitions like “Moving Artist” and performances such as “I AM A SLUT” at Undercurrent Gallery. Zhang’s art is archived by Columbia University’s Art History Department, and she has been represented by Cut Art Gallery since 2023. Her art explores themes of resilience, trauma, and empowerment, drawing from personal experiences and global observations. Hedy was featured in VoyageLA in 2024 and is currently writing “Dinner for 10,000 Artists,” an art history project documenting life and art.
Thank you for joining us, Hedy. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I am a Chinese performance artist, multimedia, mainly performance art, oil painting, film, and photography. My first trip to this world was depression from an early age; it encouraged me to break the wall of my original family and run into the real world. My second trip was as a freelance journalist traveling and documenting all over the world alone, which gave me the space to explore global residents’ living and power. My third trip was to study and live in New York for decades as an international Asian woman artist who reaches diverse emerging talents and generous mentors who dream, survive, and work together away from home. Now, I am starting my fourth trip, ready to talk about the current world as an individual. My love is accurate, my hate is logical, and my confusion gets along with comfort. They became my art, my relationships, even my lies, my sadness, and then I hope to go to a real home.
What experience has been most important in developing the direction of your work?
My life and artist career have important parallel development, so talking about the revolution of directing my art can not separate it from my life path. I don’t see single experiences as that important, but process and everyday practice and recording. I like to observe and listen to the stories of people who surround me. The diversity of life’s complexity and the power of being alive as a small one always touched and inspired me to write down deeply in my art. The core of creating for me is that as artists, there are privileges of representing, so there are responsibilities for social justice.
How do you define your practice? What are you exploring in your projects?
Generational trauma and how to reform it by Chinese art heritage is what I am focusing on currently, which I see myself as part of the history and try to archive it, and recalling the beauty of ancient philosophy by art.
What does “community” mean to you? Does community, art-related or otherwise, influence your work?
Many people might believe a community is a group of people who share the same culture and language environment, I think it’s just a generou community. For me, a real “community” means a smaller group of people, sometimes even two or three who are able to meet in person, help and support each other in daily life.
What are you working on right now?
I am working on a project “Dinner for 10,000 Artists” which is art reviews, documentary, and interviews with contemporary emerging talents who live in major cities all over the world.
Do you have any advice that you would offer to others?
I advise people to go outside to meet friends in person, to love out loudly, to connect with the world, to engage actively in what we love, be away from people and things which are over using us, and don’t listen to advice.
text & photo courtesy of Hedy Zhang
- Website: https://hedyzhangart.wixstudio.io/hedyzhang
- Instagram: @hereisnohedy
