yellow on the outside
works by Xia Zhang
July 13 - 27, 2019
Opening Reception: July 13, 6-9pm
Gallery hours by appointment

In her exhibition, yellow on the outside, Xia Zhang contemplates how the physical body is seen in the public sphere of whiteness and privately within itself. She looks toward processes of craft to understand the systems that have normalized the subtle/overt hostilities that are inescapable based on the skins we inhabit. Working through documented actions allow for consideration of how identity is laboriously performed and endured.

Xia Zhang is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator born in southern China, grew up in suburban Maryland, and came into adulthood in Appalachia. She creates from an autobiographical narrative, utilizing process as a medium to convey intersectional concepts of craft, colonialism, and femininity. Historical research heavily influences the materiality and narrative behind her work, as well as thoughts on cultural inheritance. Xia has been an avid outsider wallflower her whole life, and thus spends most of her time watching. Much of her work has evolved based on her observations from living in white-dominated communities from coal country to wine country. She earned an MFA in 2015 from West Virginia University in Studio Arts and has completed residencies with Sonoma Ceramics (Sonoma, CA) in 2015, and was awarded the Windgate Craft Artists Fellowship to participate at the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT) in 2016. Since 2012, Xia has exhibited nationally and internationally. She was the Alice C. Cole Visiting Artist at Wellesley College
(Wellesley, MA) 2016-2017, and was a 2017-2018 resident artist at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN). She is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor at The University of Tulsa, in Tulsa Oklahoma.