Emily Zou
Emily Zou is a Toronto-based Canadian-Chinese multimedia artist, sculptor, illustrator, painter, and maker of earrings. Emily is a 2020 OCAD University alumna with a BFA in Drawing & Painting. She has exhibited her work at Nuit Blanche, the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Mackenzie Investments, Propeller Art Gallery, Northern Contemporary Gallery, Gallery 1313, John B. Aird Gallery, Florence Contemporary Gallery, The Jackalope Contemporary Art Gallery, the University of Toronto, OCAD University, and featured in Existere - Journal of Arts & Literature, and the 2020 Mental Health Europe Empowerment Webinar.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My art practice is deeply rooted in my lifelong struggle with mental health, and even as a child, I found refuge in art making. It is a safe space where I can navigate deeply felt emotions like a puzzle. Across all mediums, a visual language composed of obsessive detail, entanglement, darkness, and light embodies an emotional and turbulent psychological world. I have vivid, surreal, whimsical, and illogical dreams that inspire my drawings and paintings. Beginning in 2020 (because of quarantine and climate anxiety), I played with found materials to declutter my apartment without disposing of anything. This experiment burgeoned into a series of sculptures that symbolize the human experience where chaotic energy, unlikely objects, and trash take on a new life.
My earliest artistic influences include the beautiful hand-drawn and hand-painted illustrations in search-and-find and children’s books. It was a joyous experience to escape into fantastically crafted worlds. Here sprouted my adoration for detail and the desire to create a similar search-and-find experience for viewers. As destiny propelled me into city life, 9+ years of crowds, human-made structures, and materialism have made their way into my art, and climate uncertainty fuels my desire to upcycle and inspire people to do the same. I want my art to spark dialogue where our vulnerabilities and fragilities can be shared and seen, for people to see their darkness as a source of strength rather than a deficiency, and for people to see potential in what society defines as “trash.”
Emily Zou is a Toronto-based Canadian-Chinese multimedia artist, sculptor, illustrator, painter, and maker of earrings. Emily is a 2020 OCAD University alumna with a BFA in Drawing & Painting. She has exhibited her work at Nuit Blanche, the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Mackenzie Investments, Propeller Art Gallery, Northern Contemporary Gallery, Gallery 1313, John B. Aird Gallery, Florence Contemporary Gallery, The Jackalope Contemporary Art Gallery, the University of Toronto, OCAD University, and featured in Existere - Journal of Arts & Literature, and the 2020 Mental Health Europe Empowerment Webinar.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My art practice is deeply rooted in my lifelong struggle with mental health, and even as a child, I found refuge in art making. It is a safe space where I can navigate deeply felt emotions like a puzzle. Across all mediums, a visual language composed of obsessive detail, entanglement, darkness, and light embodies an emotional and turbulent psychological world. I have vivid, surreal, whimsical, and illogical dreams that inspire my drawings and paintings. Beginning in 2020 (because of quarantine and climate anxiety), I played with found materials to declutter my apartment without disposing of anything. This experiment burgeoned into a series of sculptures that symbolize the human experience where chaotic energy, unlikely objects, and trash take on a new life.
My earliest artistic influences include the beautiful hand-drawn and hand-painted illustrations in search-and-find and children’s books. It was a joyous experience to escape into fantastically crafted worlds. Here sprouted my adoration for detail and the desire to create a similar search-and-find experience for viewers. As destiny propelled me into city life, 9+ years of crowds, human-made structures, and materialism have made their way into my art, and climate uncertainty fuels my desire to upcycle and inspire people to do the same. I want my art to spark dialogue where our vulnerabilities and fragilities can be shared and seen, for people to see their darkness as a source of strength rather than a deficiency, and for people to see potential in what society defines as “trash.”
$500.00
Mixed media (a stretcher, found objects, acrylic paint, etc.)
24x48"
The long vertical composition is reminiscent of the vertical vanity mirror. The crack-like forms are symbolic and emotional, reflecting a wrought identity.
$500.00
Mixed media.
24x24"
Mixed media (a stretcher, found objects, acrylic paint, etc.)
"My Brain Ain't Braining" was my mood at the time of titling. Now it is permanent.
$2,500.00
Mixed media.
30x40x4"
Mixed media (a stretcher, found objects, acrylic paint, etc.)
I was 1 of 5 artists to exhibit at Blitz Art Gallery ("Breaking the Mold: A Multi-Sensory Experience") for Nuit Blanche Toronto 2023. I created "Cosmos" in response to the biomorphic soft sculptures created by fellow artist Hagop Ohannessian.
Materials include strips of canvas cloth, discarded paintings, reusable bags, foam mesh, cupboard liner, plastic, wire, ribbon, string, yarn, old socks, undergarments, and pages from a tea-stained paperback book that starred a glistening white unicorn on the cover.
Whether I was thinking about the unicorn or the sparkling Milky Way stretching across the sky, "Cosmos" seemed to be an appropriate title.
$2,500.00
Mixed media.
30x36x3"
Mixed media (a stretcher, acrylic paint, found objects, etc.)
I was 1 of 5 artists to exhibit at Blitz Art Gallery ("Breaking the Mold: A Multi-Sensory Experience") for Nuit Blanche Toronto 2023. I created "Flesh & Bone" in response to the biomorphic soft sculptures created by fellow artist Hagop Ohannessian.
I tirelessly wound strips of canvas cloth, discarded paintings, reusable bags, foam mesh, cupboard liner, cotton balls, plastic, wire, ribbon, string, and even a paper wristband from a forgotten night out in the city around a thrifted wooden stretcher.
The title refers to the growing societal awareness around microplastics leeching into the environment and our bodies, where organic flesh and bone both contrast and coexist with synthetic material.
$600.00
Mixed media.
24x23.80"
Mixed media (a stretcher, pool noodles, canvas, cupboard liner, yarn, string, found objects, acrylic paint, etc.)
"I'M PHOTOSYNTHESIZING" consists of a thrifted painting of flowers in a field, pool noodles, cupboard liner, yarn, string, reusable bags, and acrylic paint. The pool noodle symbolizes my need to relax and sun gaze (obviously with my eyes closed) while bathing in the warm orange glow. Like the flowers in the original painting – although ripped, shredded, and painted over – I like to imagine I am photosynthesizing.
$3,000.00
Mixed media.
44x46"
Mixed media (a stretcher, yarn, canvas, cupboard liner, metal wire, reusable bags, found objects, acrylic paint, etc.)
I imagine watercolors flowering and spidering on damp paper, frost patterning a window, or dye feathering on fabric. It happens quickly. I may not forget whatever or whoever was on the other side of the window.
$500.00
Mixed media.
20x24"
Mixed media (acrylic paint, an old stretcher, old paintings, ribbon, reusable bags, lanyards, metal wire, etc.)
With PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), I experience monthly 1-2 week long bouts of severe depression. Undiagnosed with PMDD and an anxiety disorder for years, this contributed to the many masks I wore throughout my life. I was ashamed of feeling unhappy and often wanting to die. I felt pain in my chest, struggled with digestive problems, and my shoulders were stiff with knots. I felt confused, complicated, and unfixable. The diagnosis in my mid-20s changed my life for the better. With medication and therapy, it’s been easier to function and feel love for all facets of myself. As I grow into my ever-shifting identity, I am trying to form new neural pathways.
$900.00
Mixed media.
29.70x35.80"
Mixed media (a stretcher, acrylic paint, scraps of canvas, fabric, old paintings, string, etc.)
One decade ago, I attempted to knit a quilt. I created a 12 by 12-inch square and quickly grew bored of the monotonous process. It lay in a grubby cardboard box–like a time capsule–for ten years. I unearthed it from the clutter of my childhood bedroom, both saddened by its incompleteness and excited by its potential. I created "Window Webbing" in 2023 with the yarn from this failed project. In January 2024, numerous unfortunate events led me to hit rock bottom. I grieved about failed relationships, work, and the ideal future I had imagined. Then, this piece made sense. Although archetypal and cliche, this metaphorical window can look into the past, present, and future. Regardless, webs adorn the window. The yarn never became a quilt, but it became something beautiful.
$1,500.00
Mixed media.
34x34"
Mixed media (a stretcher, acrylic paint, scraps of canvas, fabric, old paintings, ribbon, string, etc.)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I created the third artwork in my mixed-media sculpture series, "Dark Matter." 2021 was a year of improving my mental health and growing my art practice.
To declutter my apartment, I experimented with the material I had hoarded over the years, including string, yarn, wire, old paintings, canvas scraps, friendship bracelets, ribbons from gifts, and lanyards from numerous forgotten events.
Creating these sculptures reflected my journey of increased confidence, growth, experimentation, and playfulness. "Portals," as the definition implies, is about opportunity, transition, escapism, a gateway, a path and a place.
I also went out for walks every night during this strange time. I love to stargaze, and the decreased pollution made starlight visible from the city. As I contemplated the smallness of our planet, I also imagined the energy that connects every celestial body with the atomic universe.
$8,000.00
Mixed media.
36x36x14"
Mixed media (acrylic paint, an old stretcher, old paintings, canvas scraps, old clothes, a broken Swiffer sweeper, old toothbrushes, produce mesh, string, plastic utensils, wooden chopsticks, inkless pens and markers, etc)
Making “Dark Matter” was an outlet for the anxious energy inside me. 2020 brought unemployment, instability, heartbreak, climate anxiety, COVID-19, isolation, an existential crisis, and other changes which amplified my depression and anxiety. Because of quarantine (and in a small effort to help nature), I experimented with found materials (including a stretcher, old paintings, canvas scraps, clothes, a Swiffer sweeper, toothbrushes, mesh, string, utensils, chopsticks, pens, and markers). It was also an excuse to declutter my apartment without throwing anything away.
To calm my mind, I focused on the obsessive act of winding, intertwining, and tying for hundreds of hours, channeling this energy into the material so that it eventually threatened to escape and explode from the suffocating confines of the box. This heavy object represents a chaotic internal world, an anxious brain, and our need for connection. It also seems to resemble the virus which I attempt to contain.