Zhaoxin Zhou

About

Explorations in non-linear narrative and montage perspectives

From the Printmaking Department at the Royal College of Art, I use inner activity, emotion and life as a guide to slowly unravelling the human nature mapped out in the story in a narrative format. This series of works unfolds in the context of discussing human beings and their own experiences in today‘s society, and will explore the human relationship between themselves and their social groups. I’m very influenced by artist Horst Janssen, his prints gave me new perspectives on technique. The illustrator, Feilicia chiao, has a creative vision that I really appreciate. Central to some of her art is a bald, baby-like thing Chiao created to represent a person or a feeling she was having. She said: “I remember where I was mentally and emotionally for each drawing.

Through the exploration and experimentation of the four works ‘Loneliness’, ‘Goldfish Grandma’, ‘The rolls of film’ and ‘Alone’. ‘Alone’, I explores and experiments with the four works to gain a deeper understanding of the true nature of human nature, the unique nature of good and evil, a creature that has been named good and evil since the Garden of Eden. In the preliminary stage of each work, I will integrate his own experience into the work in a storytelling way to immerse and fit in the relationship between the story and the society. The core of the series lies in my ingenious way of presenting the elements of my inner emotions and my own experience in the medium of printmaking, and at the same time, taking the intrinsic sin of human beings and the fatalism of the predestination of human beings since the Garden of Eden as the starting point to unfold the work. At the same time, the dialogue starts with the original sin of mankind and the fatalism that has predestined mankind from the Garden of Eden. The use of special materials in the presentation of the work, a combination of soft-touch silk and corroded zinc plates, subtly conveys to the viewer the author’s perception of the bystander of my grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, as well as my emotions in the prints and in the medium used. The visual and tactile aspects of these mediums map the essence of human life and its emotional underpinnings. The series invites the viewer to re-examine their own inner self, encouraging a deeper understanding of the complexity of human emotions, the inner relationships and the intertwining of human beings (umbilical cord) in today’s society.

Each painting in the series is a narrative scene, full of camera-ready images and the thoughts behind them. These artworks reveal the unique intertwined and inseparable side of human emotions, the subtle and profound relationship between oneself and others. Through this artistic expression, the series is not just a set of paintings, but a journey of self-exploration and statement, and reshapes people’s understanding of self-knowledge and the nature of emotions.