Zifan Zhang

Zifan Zhang is a pattern designer and a storytelling illustrator. She uses illustration to explore relationships, identity, humans and nature through visual narratives.

Zifan's practice looks at forests, trees, birds, creatures and unperceived human feelings to discuss human relationships within the environments they inhabit. She combines organic and natural materials with riso, etching and screen-printing processes to express her drawings and creative thinking.

She is a tree that lives in a forest of many artists who use nature as inspiration. She is committed to extending human thought and perception through her paintings, encouraging viewers to touch and interpret materials in their own way.

Zifan Zhang is a pattern designer and a storytelling illustrator.

Based on the analysis of social-human relations and drawing from my own experience, I drew six patterns to express my understanding of human relationships at different stages, hoping to convey a relaxed state of mind to the introverted personality. The 'tree' full of vitality, inclusion, countless roots and whiskers is a metaphor for human beings. I used single-page pop-up book production techniques to tell the story of the various personalities of the tree.

While selecting materials and preliminary research, I considered my place and identity as a 'tree' within a relational forest. To visualise and materialise my work, I employed pattern printing techniques, including etching, riso and other approaches that require patience and dedication. As a material, I used bamboo silk, bamboo paper, and sandalwood bark paper (all coming from different types of trees.)

The Relationship of the Tree

The Relationship of the Tree

This story comes from my life and my friends' life.

In this world, many lovely people are emotionally sensitive, either directly or indirectly, including myself sometimes. I want to show my view of society and my understanding of human relationships. This story happens in the forest.

I use 'tree' as a metaphor to present human society because the forest is a magical place that absorbs all light and can obscure all light, similar to human society.

I use six of my stages to show everyday human life, and I want, through this story, that we gently weave in this forest, like my favourite writer, Wang Zengqi, said: "To love colour tenderly in black and white, to make a pilgrimage to black and white in colour".

I am a small tree (using the tree's roots and the family tree's symbolic meaning to refer to human beings). I do not know how I came into this world. My parents told me how to drink, eat and speak (metaphorically put into the family mindset system). They were too busy, so they asked human beings to transplant me to a strange place (a metaphor for being sent to school and slowly exposed to the outside world). Here, a lot of things happened.

Medium:

Bamboo and sandalwood paper

Size:

33cm x 75cm

Zifan Zhang

The Relationship of the Tree

Medium:

Size:

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Royal College of Art