Ziyue Zhou
Stop and Continuum (residency at Villa Belleville) 2019-2020 installations, found objects in the neighborhood, glue, wire, nylon thread, plant; drawings on paper, Indian ink, glass, plaster variable. Dimensions. Villa Belleville - Paris / installations, objets trouvés du quartier, colle, fil de fer, fil de nylon, plante ; dessins sur papier, encre de chine, verre, plâtre. Dimensions variables La Villa Belleville - Paris / instalaciones, objetos encontrados en el barrio, pegamento, alambre, hilo de nailon, planta; dibujos sobre papel, tinta china, vidrio, yeso. Dimensiones variables Villa Belleville - Paris
Usually taking the form of installations in space, my works mix different mediums such as drawing, sculpture, video, and are always intimately linked to the space that welcomes them. I was born in the small village of Xiapu, in the south of China. I have always been fascinated by this atmosphere in which I grew up, surrounded by an astonishing diversity of landscapes, mixing rivers, hills, sea and mountains. Nature and space are fundamental elements for me, in particular for their fluid and unstable nature, and constitute the underlying foundation of all my creations.
Like Georges Perec, I question the usual, I question gestures, the place of objects in space, as well as the place of my own body. I create installations made up of fragments of ordinary life, from pieces of abandoned furniture, post-its, plants, various papers, and assemble them to create kinds of "visual haikus". A continual dialogue is established between the materials and the colors that I use for my work, and leaves to the viewer the possibility of imagining an after.
Stop and Continuum (residency at Villa Belleville) 2019-2020 installation found objects in the neighborhood, glue, wire, nylon thread, plant; drawings on paper, Indian ink, glass, plaster variable. Dimensions.
“I create my works by thinking of the surrounding space, using materials on site, and even taking into account the variation of light in the space, depending on the time of day, or the seasons. This careful look at the context in which I find myself also leads me to work on “everyday banality”.”
Stop and Continuum (residency at Villa Belleville) 2019-2020 installation view, found objects in the neighborhood.
Seemingly insignificant, my projects fit into the definition of blandness given by François Julien in his Praise of Blandness, Based on the Thought and Aesthetics of China (1993). He says of this "banal virtue" that it is "both what has the most value and what is the most common, by which everything comes true but we never see".
Stop and Continuum. Installations, Detail
The Garden of Émilie Nguyen 2015-2018, image of the edition
LE JARDIN ÉMILIE NGUYEN / THE GARDEN OF ÉMILIE NGUYEN 2015-2018, 45-47 Rue des Cévennes, Paris
In the summer of 2015, I arrived in Paris. I moved in with a resident named Émilie Nguyen. She is French with Vietnamese origins, and was born in the 1930s. For several years, she has housed around forty cats.
In his house, cats, pigeons, fruits, vegetables, real and false plants are mixed. This environment takes on the air of nature morte, or still life if we keep the English term, which evolves day after day, and pushes me to question the relationship between animals, humans, organic and non-organic elements.
Full time, part time, from time to time Installation view
FULL TIME, PART TIME, FROM TIME TO TIME (November Paris)
Series of 18 drawings, pencil, ink, watercolor on paper 3 photos inkjet prints variable dimensions 2016
What I try to bring through my works is a sensitive and poetic look at ordinary elements, a celebration of the everyday.
IG: @ziyeuxx