Haoyun Erin Zhao is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco, working across painting, printmaking, and installation. Born in China and relocated to the United States at seventeen, Zhao’s practice is shaped by an ongoing dialogue between Eastern and Western philosophical and artistic traditions. Her early training in Chinese calligraphy and ink painting, alongside influences from Western art history, informs a visual language that moves between these distinct cultural perspectives.
Zhao’s work explores human psychology, memory, and cultural narratives through the symbolic language of nature. She weaves translucent forms, calligraphic gestures, and recurring motifs from the natural world into layered visual environments. Birds, plants, water, fire, and other elements of nature become vehicles through which she examines inner experience, transformation, and the relationship between the individual and the larger cultural and natural worlds.
Zhao’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the de Young Museum, the Exploratorium, and the International Print Center New York. Her work is held in the collections of Google, Meta, IBM, LinkedIn, PwC, ICBC, Kaiser Permanente, Boston Children’s Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and numerous private collections.
Her artist residencies include the Swatch Art Peace Hotel Residency in Shanghai, the Golden Foundation for the Arts Residency in New York, the Meta Open Arts Residency in Burlingame, Edition/Basel Residency in Basel, Switzerland, and Kala Art Institute Residency in Berkeley.