My introduction to O Zhang's photography was at the current exhibition in Berkeley (Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection). In the lower portion of the museum a wall of young Chinese girls stare at you from their portraits. There is an inescapable weight to their expressions. Something stern, unabashed, and honest emanates from them. Though while I was there the majority of conversation in front of the portraits was how cute they were (this is perhaps an entire other subject to tackle).
I decided to visit her website and discovered she has many different and intriguing series available for viewing online. Her portrait series Daddy and I of western men with adopted Chinese daughters made me incredibly uncomfortable which had me running for her artist statement.
O Zhang photographed elements of the body with projections of paintings on her subject's skin in both her series Water Moon and Eyes. The deep colors in her projections obscure the body just enough to make me really analyze what I was seeing. Her work is definitely worth seeing! www.ozhang.com/.
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