Join artist Shellie Zhang for a conversation with curator Renée van der Avoird about her recent work.

Shellie Zhang (b. 1991, Beijing, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. By uniting both past and present iconography with the techniques of mass communication, language and sign, Zhang’s work deconstructs notions of tradition, gender, the diaspora, and popular culture while calling attention to these subjects in the context and construction of a multicultural society. She is interested in exploring how integration, diversity and assimilation is implemented and negotiated, how this relates to lived experiences, how culture is learned, relearned and sustained, and how things are remembered and preserved.

Zhang has exhibited at venues including WORKJAM (Beijing), Asian Art Initiative (Philadelphia) and Gallery 44 (Toronto). She is a recipient of grants such as the Toronto Arts Council’s Visual Projects grant, the Ontario Arts Council’s Visual Artists Creation Grant and the Canada Council’s Project Grant to Visual Artists. She is a member of EMILIA-AMALIA, a feminist reading and writing group. In 2017, She was an Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her work has been published in Canadian Art, the Toronto Star, Blackflash Magazine, CBC Arts, and C Magazine. Recent and upcoming projects include exhibitions at Artspace (Peterborough), Patel Gallery (Toronto), AKA Artist-Run (Saskatoon) and the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, Alaska).

Renée van der Avoird is Assistant Curator of Canadian Art at the AGO. Selected AGO exhibitions include The Open Door: Mary Hiester Reid and Helen McNicoll (2020), Margaret Priest: The Construction Series and Other Concrete Matters (2019), Karl Beveridge & Carole Condé: Early Work (2019), David Milne Centre (2019) and Betty Goodwin: Moving Towards Fire (2019).