tianyi zhang

Tianyi Zhang (b. 1995, Hunan, China) lives and works in Shanghai, China, and Los Angeles, CA. She earned an MFA ('19) Degree in Photographic and Electronic Media from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and a BFA ('17 & '14) in Studio Photography and Design respectively from The Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China. She was nominated for the Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize, Fine Art Photography Award, in London, First International Film Festival, in Xining. Zhang’s art projects have been presented in art festivals and galleries around the world, including ElijahWheat Gallery, The Plaxall Gallery, Every Woman Biennial, and Anthology Film Archive in New York, ESMoA Video Art+Film Festival in California, Video Arte Faenza in Colombia, The New Art Fest in Portugal, and the First International Film Festival in Xining. Her work has been reviewed or featured in Artnet, Girls in Film, Soleil Rouge, Artron, Art Zealous, and Create Magazine.

Zhang is a multidisciplinary artist who works in digital film, installation, animation, performance, and social media. Throughout Zhang’s work, she explores patterns of behavior and communication in our current over-saturated media and social environment. She creates interactive performances through her own portrait where simple habitual gestures are emphasized to explore the connection between private and collective experience, cultural pressures, expectations and identity. Recently, Zhang has been focusing on hand gestures and the role of physical labor in media production and the digital world. In her new project, Nursery. Zhang created a mixed-media installation that includes sculptures of gloved hands with fancy nails, grass, and electronic screens. This project explored the female labor issue and the digital illusion created by cheap internet labor.