Tasmania gives me this freedom of taking a break from the human world. You can go somewhere, and even if you’re still in your human drama, being melancholic on the beach, the beach is bigger, the wind is bigger. It just puts you in your place.
Since moving to Tasmania, CiCi Zhang has started taking her sculptures on bush walks. Every Monday she hikes a new part of the island and brings along a sculpture to photograph in nature. As her friend and fellow visual artist Julia Drouhin says, “It’s so special. It’s like she’s doing a little celebration every time she puts her alien creations into the world of nature.” Zhang tells me that she can’t bear to leave her sculptures in the studio all day. “I want to bring them out to enjoy the sunshine, the wind, to give them life, to give them breath,” she says.
CiCi Zhang is a Chinese artist and musician from Shen Yang in northern China. “China is shaped like a rooster,” she says, “and Shen Yang is near the rooster’s neck.” Her Chinese name is Zhang Xiyue. Xi means early sunrise and yue means the moon. Her father chose the name because he wanted CiCi “to just live, to live from the early sunrise until the moon.”
From the age of 15 until the completion of her masters degree, Zhang studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. CAFA is an elite art school that turns away more than 90 per cent of applicants each year. During her time at CAFA, Zhang studied oil painting, traditional Chinese painting using a maobi brush, and print arts. Her work also spans collage, animation and sculpture, and she has been exhibited in Beijing, Seoul, Sydney and Hobart.
Zhang’s first trip to Australia was to visit her cousin in Sydney. “The sky was blue and the water was so different, totally different to Beijing. I love my country but in Beijing we can’t even see each other, there is smog every day. When I came to Sydney I finally saw colour! It's so important to artists.” Appreciation of colour is on vivid display in Zhang’s recent artworks: brightly-coloured sculptures reminiscent of balloon animals, and paintings so vibrant they seem to leap off the canvas.
The first time CiCi Zhang saw Tasmania on map she thought, “Oh my god, so romantic – the end of the world has a heart-shaped island, maybe I will find love over there!” Aside from the romantic possibilities, she knew Tasmania was home to the Museum of Old and New Art, and she had heard about the island’s tight-knit artist community.
Leaving China was not without its sacrifices. As a graduate of CAFA, Zhang had been offered a prestigious opportunity. “I was offered a job working for the army. You just have to draw the Chairman and some other leaders. The government would have given me a place to live in Beijing.” But instead she felt the pull of the wild. “I need wild things,” she says. “I need freedom, so I rejected the offer.” In Tasmania she found the sense of wildness she was yearning for in “the different birds, the different voice of the wind, that is what I needed in my heart.”
I met Zhang via Edith Perrenot and Julia Drouhin (aka Les Petites Annonces), who were the subject of my last article for Forty South. So where does CiCi’s story intersect with these two French artists?
The story of how CiCi Zhang and Edith Perrenot met is like the plot of an indie rom-com. Soon after moving to Tasmania, the former walked into Contemporary Art Tasmania, where the latter was working as a gallery invigilator. Zhang was immediately drawn to Perrenot’s buoyant energy, but she was too shy to strike up a conversation. The next time Zhang visited the gallery, Perrenot wasn’t there, but on her third visit she mustered the courage to speak to the vivacious native French woman.
“It's a kind of friendship that is so natural,” says Perrenot. “We didn't know each other, but soon enough we were outside, gesticulating and talking about Camus, who we had both read, and that was it, you know?”
Perrenot understands the importance of finding kindred creative spirits in a new place. “I know what is it to arrive in a new place, and to be isolated as an artist,” she says, “But when you find other artists, you don't feel isolated anymore. It's really important because people are always asking you, ‘Are you going to find a proper job?’ It can be really draining.”
Perrenot tells me that, in contrast to her own moments of doubt about pursing art as a career, Zhang is one of the most courageous and dedicated artists she knows. “CiCi is like, 'I have no money, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’m going to draw’. She has a daily practice and the absolute dedication of knowing that that is her work.”
Aside from her visual art practice, Zhang performs with Drouhin and Perrenot in a cross-cultural Chinese and French musical trio called Parallel Lines. Their first performance happened by chance when a sound artist that Drouhin and Perrenot were intending to play with was unavailable. The gig was a two-hour musical improvisation for the opening of the Sculpture Trail at Art Farm Birchs Bay. Perrenot knew that Zhang played the gu zheng, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument, and asked if she would like to come on board as their third performer. After a few failed attempts to borrow a full-sized gu zheng for the gig, Zhang was able to borrow a mini version. Parallel Lines was formed.
Like Zhang, Perrenot has a strong appreciation for the Tasmanian wilderness. “Tasmania gives me this freedom of taking a break from the human world. You can go somewhere, and even if you’re still in your human drama, being melancholic on the beach, the beach is bigger, the wind is bigger. It just puts you in your place. It's very important to preserve the wild Tasmania.” She tells me that when she first moved to Tasmania she thought the sky seemed higher, so much so that she actually Googled to confirm whether that was possible.
CiCi Zhang has found kindred spirits in Tasmania, but her decision to live on an island far from the land of her birth isn’t something that her family and teachers back in China are able to relate to. “They don’t understand me,” she says. “But it doesn't matter because I just follow my heart.”
There is a purity and simplicity to this approach to life that must be part of the reason she is such a talented artist. Art is what Zhang lives and breathes, and she will continue to seek out places that offer her the freedom and inspiration to create.
You can see more of CiCi Zhang’s work through her Instagram: @studiocicizhang.
Stephanie Jack is an Australian-Singaporean actor and writer. She has lived in six countries and on board a yacht. She is a graduate of Harvard’s American Repertory Theater Institute, and the creator of Mixed Up, a YouTube series exploring mixed race identity. Her artistic work is propelled by a keen desire to bridge cultural divides. Having returned to Tasmania during Covid-19, Stephanie is finding island life immensely rewarding. More about her can be found at stephanie-jack.com.
