Breathing from the Depths 
Oil on linen, 80 × 80 cm, 2026
 
Artwork Statement
Breathing from the Depths explores belonging through shifting perceptual and sensory spaces. Through layered oil paint, translucent colour, and soft erasure, organic and landscape-like forms gradually emerge and dissolve, inviting viewers to navigate between recognition and uncertainty. The work reflects on belonging as a fluid and temporary experience shaped through memory, perception, and embodied looking.
 
Artist Bio
Jiayi Zhou is a visual artist based in Melbourne, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne and is currently undertaking a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts. Working primarily with oil painting, Jiayi’s practice explores memory, perception, embodied experience, and the unstable relationship between abstraction and figuration. Her paintings often develop through layered colour, erasure, soft blending, and ambiguous organic forms, creating atmospheric fields in which images appear, dissolve, and re-form through the act of looking.