Using everything within his reach, Ye Zhu adopts a maximalist approach to painting, both materially and technically. Zhu combines natural materials such as tree roots and semi-precious stones with mass produced plastics and hardware – all while using acrylic paint and relief sculpting to fuse all the components together. His work spans the history of Western and Eastern art and cultural influences—ranging from Duchamp’s readymade assemblages to Tishan Hsu’s expositions of human nature and technology. His scope combines classical painting techniques with abstraction and Chinese nature paintings, and in doing so, Zhu propels the conversation of contemporary painting toward global interconnectedness.
Based in Brooklyn, NY (b. 1986, Taishan, China), Ye Zhu is an interdisciplinary artist focused on painting, public art, and social practice. He has presented solo exhibitions at DIMIN (2023) and Harkawik (2022) in New York, NY; at Moskowitz Bayse (2021) in Los Angeles, CA; and at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx, NY (2022). His work has been included in group exhibitions at The Sugar Hill Museum in Harlem, NY (2022–23), Gavlak Gallery in Los Angeles (2023), Galerie Marguo in Paris, Harper’s (2023, 2021), and James Fuentes (2021) in New York. Over the past year (2024–25), he completed residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Dieu Donné Workspace in Brooklyn, and Wave Hill in the Bronx. Zhu has created numerous public projects, including a tribute installation for healthcare workers at the Yale School of Medicine (2022), a billboard project with Kingsgate Project Space in London (2021), A Universe in Strafford, NH (2021), and CONSTELLATION on Governors Island (2021), featured in The New York Times. He is a founding member of Haven Arts Park (2020–2023), an initiative dedicated to transforming contaminated land into an art park, and was a recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant (2022–2023).