Glory is part of an ongoing series that settles on nightlife as a way to re-address feelings of uncertainty that have informed Zhang’s identity since her early teen years. Drawing from her experiences as a 1.5-generation immigrant, the paintings capture universally recognizable experiences of human exploration, relying on the night as a space of fluctuation between known and unknown, seen and unseen, everywhere and nowhere. Recognizing the disorientation of living in a state of constant uprooting and finding comfort in the unplaceable, Zhang explains, “Just as leaving is often a privilege compared to those left behind, non-belonging becomes a conscious choice that acknowledges the fluidity of one’s relationship with the world.” Depicting night-time scenes of public and private spaces in Vancouver and beyond, these paintings are a reflection on her own diasporic experience of wanting to belong to a specific place or group while resisting assimilatory patterns. Referring to a children’s game of hide and seek, D. W. Wincott similarly reflects in a 1963 essay: “It is joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found.” For Zhang, this desire and comfort in non-belonging is equally an act of sovereignty as it is a consequence of hyper-globalization. She seeks to translate her own plurality of being known while finding solace in aspects of ourselves that are fundamentally unassimilable.

Ketty Haolin Zhang

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Ketty Haolin Zhang 🇨🇳🇨🇦 is an emerging interdisciplinary artist. Informed by her diasporic experience as a 1.5-generation immigrant, her art practice navigates her relationship with placelessness, liminal space and (non)belonging in a hyper-globalized world. She is interested in creating works that embody both closeness and distance - the simultaneous desire to belong and to resist being defined.