Ariel Zhang (b.1997 China) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the intersection of interior and exterior space, order and chaos, and the seen and unseen. Her creative practice spans across painting, installation, sculpture, and video, as she navigates between different mediums. Through her work, Zhang often portrays abstract architectural elements such as windows, doors, corners, and walls, piecing them together to compose an imagined space from fragmented parts. She employs geometric forms to manipulate the pictorial plane, and prompts the viewers to reconsider our existence through the lens of collective architectural forms.

Zhang's works draw from her experiences of dislocation in the urban landscape, capturing the interplay of memories and the world's ordered complexity. She employs parallel lines, sharp angles, rectangular forms, and monochromatic palettes to unveil the tangible presence of memories and the intricate nature of our built surroundings.

Zhang's artistic process mirrors the way individuals navigate their own space in a world that is artificially constructed. She juxtaposes the physical and psychological properties of constraint, boundaries, order, and chaos that define the human condition. Thus, her imaginative explorations encompass not only architecture but also the viewer's perception and recollection of mass and space as encountered, lived, and experienced. Through fragmentation and recontextualization of the constructed world, Zhang prompts conversations about the physical environment and the sense of displacement within it.

By weaving together threads of history, current moments, different locations, and distant places, she strives to build a heterotopia space that transcends the temporal and spatial constraints with its intrinsic coherence.

Zhang studied German and Economics at Shanghai International Studies University and is now a BFA student at the School of the Art Institute Chicago. Her works have been exhibited in Shenzhen, China, Chicago, IL, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Saint Louis, Missouri, and Annapolis, MD.