Artists

Vivien Zhang

Press release

Pilar Corrias is pleased to present Flat Earth, Vivien Zhang’s second solo show with the gallery.

The exhibition marks a new development in the artist’s ongoing exploration of the flawed linguistic, visual and taxonomic systems that shape our view of a hyper-saturated world. In her new series of paintings, Zhang abstracts visual devices from a breadth of disciplines – from cartography, physics and botany, to the study of butterflies – to produce playful paintings that bring the sociopolitical implications of visual deception to the fore.

Reflecting on her own experiences of migration (the artist was born in China, spent her formative years in Thailand and Kenya, and moved to the UK in 2008), Zhang uses the natural world as a prism through which the dictates of cultural assimilation can be examined. Several works depict the colourful patterns of butterflies that use forms of evolutionary mimicry. Such strategies include a harmless species mimicking a poisonous species that predators know to avoid, and two poisonous species developing similar warning signals for their mutual benefit. For Zhang, mimicry highlights the demands for authenticity and uniformity that the migrant must navigate as they settle among ‘legitimate’, local citizens. Alternatively, camouflage might be a subversive act of self-protection, permitting a person to exercise their right to disappear in a surveilled world.