Jiachen (Coral) Zhu

The first painting depicts a skateboarder in a tunnel. I was inspired by Albert Camus’ Le Mythe de Sisyphe and my personal experience observing skateboarders. The endless labour of Sisyphus is a strong symbol of the absurdity of human existence. I drew a connection to this absurdity when I saw skateboarders practising the same trick continuously. No matter how they failed they never gave up. This reminded me of people today; they do the same work every day and may feel exhausted, but they continue working to survive. I used bright green for the tunnel to evoke simplicity and to contrast the red skateboard. I also cropped the figure so viewers can pay more attention to the movement.

In my second painting I focus on themes related to societal outlying, loneliness, and death. I was inspired by the video Crazy Alien by Liang Long, which made me think about outcasts on the margins of society. I painted four hands lined up which move as though they’re walking forward together, but the outlier and others are disconnected through colour. The outlier is desaturated and stands at the back. I also included a reflection of a skeletal hand in the water to represent the outlier’s shadow, which shows the possibility of death caused by social isolation.  

Jiachen (Coral) Zhu was born on August 28th, 2000, in Jinhua, Zhejiang, China. She came to Canada as an international student in 2015. Coral has been attending University of Toronto since 2018 and has been doing the Art and Art History program that is joint with Sheridan College. Her artworks focus on social anxiety, psychological challenges within the human mind, and the connection between Asian and Western cultures. Coral’s paintings always attract attention to social issues and mental health issues. The concepts are derived from human experiences that are based on her observations, which relate to history, mythology, philosophy, and other social phenomena.