Peonies
Mixed media on canvas, oil, paper clay, metal leaf, 101× 83 × 10 cm, 2026
 
Artwork Statement
My work begins from a desire to be seen — a desire that exceeds survival and moves toward beauty, ornament, and excess. Rather than treating these conditions as superficial, I approach them as necessary forms through which longing becomes visible.
In Peonies, beauty is inseparable from disappearance. The flowers, constructed from hand-built paper clay, are at once full and fragile, carrying within their bloom the beginning of collapse. Copper leaf, altered through burning, introduces another layer of instability: surfaces shimmer while already in the process of erosion. Through these materials, I explore how visibility can feel both seductive and precarious.
The window in the work functions not as a view, but as a threshold between interior and exterior, emergence and concealment. Within Distributed Worlds, the piece reflects on how desire, emotion, and selfhood unfold across unstable boundaries. It invites a slowed encounter, where shifts in light, depth, and proximity keep the image open, unresolved, and in motion.
 
Artist Bio
Cathy Zhang is an emerging artist based in Melbourne, with connections to the Gold Coast. Currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at the Victorian College of the Arts, her practice is shaped by a Chinese cultural background and explores how perception and interiority may be made visible. Working across painting and mixed media, she develops soft, layered compositions through material experimentation, characterised by a luminous visual language and a dreamlike, imaginative sensibility.