Life & Work with Vicky Zhang

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vicky Zhang.

Hi Vicky, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a girl from a South East China Coastal City, Shenzhen. I’m now pursuing an animation BFA degree at the USC School of Cinematic Art and working to be a brilliant storyteller, director, and artist.

Coming from this city that represents Chinese cultural fusion, a miniature of every community, lifestyle, and class, I was nurtured with the passion to pursue challenging, controversial, profound ideas, lifestyles, and stories. This passion led me to LA, a bigger place for people from all cultural backgrounds to mingle and exchange their views.

Growing up, I was not a talkative child. My way of communication is through paintings. I can’t remember the first time I picked up a crayon and doodled on sketch paper, but my love for art grounded since I was in kindergarten. Later, once literate, I fell in love with comics. Fantasy world, imaginative characters, break-taking storylines, those were things I grew up with. I didn’t talk a lot during my school days, said my mom, the patchy comic figures I drew on notebooks seemed to be saying everything I wanted to say.

Then came my cinephilia phase. I can’t remember when I fanatically fell in love with moving pictures, but like comics, they are just different ways of visual storytelling, aren’t they? I never intentionally pushed myself into this industry, even after years of dedication to my “valuable” spare time doing nothing but going to theaters. However, as if everything lined up, animation found me. The year of my college application, I was frustrated. Although as artsy as I put myself before, I did not come from any art-related education background. Due to outstanding academic reports, I followed along with the traditional Chinese academic education until high school. I got into the best school in my city, but once I was in this Ivy tower, surrounded by the cream of society, I knew I wanted to do something else. It is a hard time to squeeze my way out. I’m not only at war with pressures from the traditional Chinese family values, the elitism of my cohort, and the unrecognition from tutors, but even myself. It’s all rusty to remember what supports me to finally get on this track. Still, the love for pure stories, the emotions, cultures, and powers behind them, and the alchemy of composing them onto a big screen was definitely eternally pushing me.

Looking back on my art journey, the driving force of creation seems to be constant resistance. I want to use my creative way to speak for and represent myself. Now, coming to this larger platform and gaining numerous chances to freely create and tell stories, I wish to keep this enthusiasm and be able to represent those whose voices haven’t been heard.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
At an early age, the major obstacle to my creation was unrecognition from my surroundings. I believe it’s a cliche Chinese kids’ story, and that collectiveness made it even more worth telling. During intensive school days, I can only squeeze in time to art studios to do art on the side. My surroundings also show contempt for art students. At home, even family members can’t be at your back. You can say this background formed a girl who dislikes any kind of unreflective status quo and is eager to aim for the truth by learning, creating, and telling.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My earlier art focused on pure self-expression. When I first started to mimic artists like Salvador Dali and Egon Schiele, it almost felt like a glimpse of a different world. I did a lot of mixed media and installations throughout high school. You may think I am prone to the abstractive experimental style, while too bad that I’m also always a rational thinker, which forces me I spend a ton of time pondering the balance of self-expression and representing reality. I do like to make sense and meanings out of things. I involuntarily fell into the mode of doing thorough research on the topic I wanted to touch on, which gave my earlier work a quirky texture of magic realism, which I’m quite proud of.

Moving on to more story-based arts, when I got into a cinematic school, I also wanted to incorporate this style into my works. I love colorful fantasy character designs and world buildings, which always give people around me the impression of cuteness and delight. However, I never intended to build a world that allows the audience to escape from reality.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I’m also a passionate dancer. I love body movement and the art of exploring control of your body. For me, I see dancing as a different way of telling. Not only there are “animation” and “storytelling” styles in dance, but going deep into connection with my body always gives me a new way to look at the world around me.

Contact Info:

• Website: vickyzixizhang.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vickyzhangzixi/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicky-zhang-a737b1223/