YUYANG ZHANG | earnestly study the congress document, 2022

Yuyang Zhang’s collages that playfully yet delicately navigate the complex channel of cultural hybridity, queer identity, immigration, and diasporic experience. Layers of old Chinese propaganda posters, screenshots, and personal photographs strip the subjects out of context and place them in contemporary American settings. Historic communist propaganda is repurposed to bridge past and present-day China, seamlessly blending with American iconography. The juxtaposition creates fantastical narratives built upon fragments deconstructed from the original. Meanwhile, subtle visual cues in these pieces allude to the continuous tension between China and the United States. The resulting work exposes sources of persistent stereotypes and prejudices that often burden people from China or with Chinese heritage. 

The amalgamation of media shapes its balance between levity and seriousness, beauty and sorrow, peace and tension. These collages foster a space for audiences with a wide range of backgrounds, especially for people of geographical or cultural displacement, to recognize themselves. Audiences are welcome to escape, re-imagine, multiply, and heal in this space.

BIO

Yuyang Zhang (b.1993, Wuhan, China, he/him/his) is a Portland, Oregon based multi-disciplinary artist. He holds a BS in Hospitality and Tourism Management from Purdue University and an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art. His work manifests the experience of being a chronically online diasporic gay. Zhang enthusiastically references Taylor Swift and Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. Scarlet Witch in his work. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Blue Sky Gallery (Portland), and Fuller Rosen Gallery (Philadelphia). Group exhibitions include Portland Chinatown Museum, Heaven Gallery (Chicago), B-Part Gallery (Berlin, Germany), among others. Zhang has been featured in publications including New York Times, Oregon ArtsWatch, The Philadelphia Inquirer, AINT-BAD, The Hand Magazine, Buckman Journal, and BOOOOOOM. His work is part of the Soho House Portland, and Regional Arts & Cultural Council Public Arts Collections. Zhang works at Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts as the Communications Manager.