Meet Tong Zhou | Young Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tong Zhou and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tong, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Due to language, everything seems to revert to its core issue: language itself. I cannot create an entirely new language to construct grand events, nor can I use familiar language to convey true feelings. I lack certain common qualities in both, such as sincerity and depth…

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Limitations exist inherently: art itself is a form of resistance. Observing the world through arts makes life more interesting.

Regardless of where this statement will lead me, the speaker is not the guide of their own journey. In the long statement, I have lost direction. On one hand, I believe that if I meticulously retrace my steps, I can find the answer. On the other hand, I am facing the dilemma of staying in place due to exhaustion. Whether I walk out of this jungle or wait for some creature to show compassion and provide me with warmth and food out of spiritual generosity, my trajectory will not change as a result.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Drinking a cup of Turkish coffee outside the Blue Mosque, the elderly waiter also brings a few small flowers to the table. Living people tell history, but history is about the dead, and today’s Turkey no longer holds such mysterious tales. Saints, merchants, swindlers, tourists, and mothers all mix together over the Bosphorus, where cats are truly the national character. By all accounts, everywhere lies under the same sky, yet for some reason, the sunsets here are particularly favored by divine light. We will find a rooftop, facing the sea, back to the Blue Mosque, where the city’s continuous chanting prayers and the cries of seagulls make the sunset and twilight even more ambiguous. On Istanbul’s left hand is the Asian bazaar, and on the right, the European palaces (and countless domed silhouettes), where the splendor is ceaseless, not quite like the kissing ends of two continents, but more like the fantastical end of the world.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We all expect something more in art works, a deeper resonance, more than the endless speech of artist and the unreadable text of the exhibition. For me, Richard Serra, the American artist, has been deeply influential. Although Richard Serra’s sculptures are abstract, people can still perceive and understand them because the essence of the work is produced in harmony with the space. The essence of a piece is reflected in the audience’s understanding, not in the sculpture itself. The spatial construction of the sculpture and the perspective of time are different ways for viewers to understand Richard Serra’s sculptures. Viewers do not need to know about the sculpture works, but need to experience them firsthand. When people walk around the space surrounding the sculptures, their experiences are what the artwork intends to express. Serra’s approach shows that art is not just something to be looked at from a distance but is an immersive experience that engages the body as well as the mind. This realization—that our viewing habits can profoundly affect our cognitive processes—is a powerful insight into not only art but also how we interact with the world around us.

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Image Credits
All the images photoed by Tong Zhou