Hedy Zhang

There are no innocent women artists, “she” will always be judged, doubted, ignored, or shamed. Any woman might have to struggle with such situations in life. In the matrix of patriarchal society, where women are recognized as the relative gender compared to men, there is a lack of legitimacy in officially expressing the women’s perspective and language.

I incorporate women personas into my performance art, speaking an unignorable artistic language to make them profoundly seen and heard.
I was born in Xi’an, began writing at the age of seven, and suffered from depression from seventeen to twenty-seven.

I embarked on a journey of self-discovery, writing and photographing while traveling the world alone. After a few years, I moved to New York and lived there for a decade. Since then, I have observed and experienced the deprivation of discourse power as an Asian women artist globally, dramatic traumas that overlaps with my art career.

I was pressured by the New York Police Department to remove my artwork, since I refused, then I was forced into a psychiatric hospital for evaluation for keeping my art piece published. I experienced domestic violence, was falsely accused and imprisoned, had been exonerated after months of appeals.

My artworks had been stolen illegally and distorted for defaming me, causing me cyber violence from thousands, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder. I was harassed by extreme nationalists, forcing me to relocate and live in seclusion. During these years, only art kept me company. I often ask myself, why do I do performance art?

The art has diverted my life from the traditional art trajectory, making it precarious, isolated, detested, and abandoned. It burns my life, and that’s why I can only have one piece of performance art each year, each unique to my lifetime.

Then, I paint more because I am filled with fear. I use bold colors, intense symbols, and true realism to narrate real stories that cannot be expressed in any other language. They are stories of women I have heard, seen, recognized, and experienced—stories about eroticism, sexuality, death, nudity, love, hatred, and pain. It involves aspects of

Chinese women’s reality, which is individual, subtle, yet also the collective experiences. Writing and painting are deliberate diaries I craft, called to create by my nature.

I am Hedy, who drafted a will at age 20s due to years of wandering, witnessing too many ups and downs, and unexpected accidents in life. I continuously create surprises and mock through art, carefully thought out to understand the suddenness in women’s experiences.

I am an innocent woman artist, something that should not be a lifelong proof, nor should it be something all women have to prove.