Born in China and relocating to the United States at seventeen, Haoyun Erin Zhao is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in San Francisco, California, primarily working in painting, printmaking, and installation.
Zhao’s practice exists at the intersection of Eastern and Western philosophies, exploring how color, form, and symbol accrue layered meanings through cultural context and personal experience. Informed by early training in calligraphy and ink painting and later engagement with Western art and philosophy, her work reflects a sustained inquiry into the essence of things, the fluidity of meaning, and the challenge of rendering the intangible perceptible.
From this foundation, she draws recurring motifs from nature, including birds, wings, and plants, as well as elemental and intangible forces such as water, fire, wind, and Qi (energy). Through translucency, gradients, and calligraphic gestures, forms overlap, dissolve, and re-emerge, embodying interconnectedness and continual transformation. These approaches mirror her understanding of perception as relational and unstable, unfolding within a state of constant change.
Zhao is the recipient of Swatch Art Peace Hotel Residency (Shanghai, China), Golden Foundation for the Arts (New York, U.S.), Meta Open Arts (Burlingame, U.S.), Edition/Basel Residency (Basel, Switzerland), Kala Art Institute Residency (Berkeley, U.S), etc. The artist’s work has been showcased at renowned venues including the de Young Museum, Exploratorium Museum, and the International Print Center New York. Her work is in collections such as Google, IBM, LinkedIn, ICBC, Meta, Kaiser Permanente, Boston Children’s Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and numerous private collections.