NieR:Automata - flowers for m[A]chines
Oil on canvas, 130 x91 cm, 2022
 
Artwork Statement
Paul Zhao’s practice is rooted in the intersection of personal memory, narrative fantasy, and emotional expression. Drawing inspiration from anime, video games, and contemporary illustration, his works portray characters and worlds that reflect both inner feeling and imaginative escape. These figures often originate from personal affinities—favorite characters, emotionally charged scenes—and are reinterpreted through a process that blends narrative expansion with painterly expression.
Zhao employs traditional mediums such as ink and oil paint to explore mood and story, focusing on subtle cues like posture, color, and compositional rhythm to evoke quiet emotional resonance. His art is not simply an act of fandom, but a reflection on identity, growth, and the universality of emotional experience.
By weaving together fantastical settings with intimate character studies, Zhao invites viewers to project their own feelings into his work. Each piece becomes a mirror—of longing, reflection, or wonder—suggesting that within fiction and fantasy, we often find the most honest representations of ourselves.
 
Artist Bio
Paul Zhao is a Melbourne-based illustrator and painter whose work bridges traditional techniques with modern pop culture influences. Born into an artistic family, he began painting at an early age under the guidance of his father, renowned artist Zhao Dalu. This early mentorship instilled in him a strong foundation in sketching, composition, and colour theory.
During his formative years, Zhao began integrating his love for anime, video games, and visual storytelling into his art. His passion led him to study Animation & Multimedia at RMIT and photography at Photography Studies College, further expanding his visual language across media. Today, Zhao works as an assistant at Zhao Dalu Studios while developing his own creative practice, which fuses nostalgic fantasy with emotional introspection through ink, oil, and illustration-based media.