Puxuan Zhou
Puxuan Zhou, born and raised in Tianjin, China, discovered his passion for art at a young age following fundamental drawing and painting practices. When his journey led him to the United States at 15, he continued to cultivate his artistic voice. Now based in New York, Zhou combines his fundamental fine art philosophy with emotion, aesthetics, and contemporary art elements. Zhou graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design in 2023 intending to further widen his artistic horizon. In recent years, Zhou's artistic toolkit has extended beyond traditional mediums, encompassing 3D modeling, VR, digital drawing and painting, metal printing, and collages. These diverse mediums provide fresh avenues for expressing his emotions and ideas, utilizing shapes, textures, and innovative techniques.
Zhou’s work was exhibited at Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery in 2023, :iidrr Gallery and Wonzimer gallery in 2024. Zhou’s art and story have been featured on Art Forum, US China Press, Tencent.
July 05, 2025
For those just getting to know your work, how would you describe what you do, and what brought you to it?
I invite viewers to explore my multifaceted approach to art, my recent works focusing on themes of memory, dreams, and human experiences.
I invite viewers to explore my multifaceted approach to art, my recent works focusing on themes of memory, dreams, and human experiences.
What does a typical workday look like for you? Do you have any quiet rituals or habits while working?
As an artist, I feel very lucky and privileged—there’s an enormous amount of freedom in what I do. However, I need a schedule to regulate my pace with certain projects. Sometimes, I spend too much time on a single drawing, trying to make it perfect. A schedule helps prevent me from falling into the trap of perfectionism.Rather than following a 9-to-5 routine, I prefer making art on a flexible schedule. I also need time to exercise and meditate to stay grounded in reality. It usually takes me about two hours of drawing to truly “get into the zone.” Because my work is deeply connected to my psyche and inner world, medication, therapy, and research are all important parts of my practice.It’s also essential to have time to connect with the world outside the studio. In the mornings, I often speak with other artists or collaborators, depending on the project. I enjoy making art at night, when it’s quiet—time seems to move faster during those hours, which gives me a sense of urgency. It also gives me something to look forward to the next day before I close my eyes.
You started with painting and drawing, but your recent work includes VR, 3D modelling, and digital collage. What pulled you toward those tools?
Traditional paintings and drawings have been very important to me as fundamental practices and for what those mediums represented during my early years—tools that allowed me to translate my imagination into visual forms. Since graduation, I’ve wanted to challenge myself with new mediums, experimenting with their “boundaries.” It’s important not only to expand my skills but also to keep the creative process engaging. As we grow, our relationship with art evolves as well. I’ve sought to deepen my understanding of different mediums and broaden my toolkit.When working with sculpture, I aim to create objects with distinct textures, colors, forms, styles, shapes, and aesthetics. In exhibition spaces, such as “Organic Beings” at :iidrr gallery, and with Moda last year in a group exhibition, it’s crucial to both zoom in and zoom out—to ensure that the space as a whole conveys a unified story and theme. My use of digital printing on metal, installed on the wall, is partly about playfulness and experimentation. At the same time, it’s important to understand how things come together through collaboration.
When you’re starting something new, do you usually know what medium you want to use, or do you figure it out along the way?
Most of the time, I know what medium I want to use. However, sometimes my plans don’t align with the changes that occur during the working process. In general, though, it’s a well-thought-out process involving research and understanding how my ideas can be translated into form. Experimentation is important—sometimes I simply use whatever accessible materials I can get my hands on. It’s usually healthy not to treat every project too seriously, especially in the early stages.
A lot of your work feels tied to memory or dreams. Do you find those themes show up naturally, or do you look for them?
Definitely naturally. Dreams are a medium of the unconscious. To me, it’s more important to understand why dreams appear and what they’re trying to tell me. Every dream leaves you with a certain kind of feeling that lingers after you wake up—you can feel it. I can feel it. Translating that dream into forms of art takes time: to understand, revisit, feel, and research on a very deep level. Sometimes it requires conversations with professionals; other times, it’s a conversation with myself.
Do you feel like working in digital formats changes the kind of emotion or detail you’re able to express?
Yes, working in digital formats does shift the way emotion and detail come through, but not in a reductive sense—it expands the possibilities. Digital tools give me flexibility to experiment, revise, and explore quickly, which is essential when translating something as fluid and layered as a dream or an emotion. In many ways, they allow me to get closer to the raw feeling I’m chasing, especially in the early stages of a project.But the emotion isn’t in the tool—it’s in the intention. Whether it becomes a physical piece or remains digital, the core comes from the same place: my inner world, memory, and psychological space. A project like Dream VR, for instance, started digitally but carried an emotional weight rooted in fear and subconscious imagery. Digital work lets me shape that language more freely before grounding it in material form.
How do you think about the relationship between your physical and digital work, are they separate for you, or more connected than that?
My digital works are very important—they serve as blueprints for what eventually becomes physical pieces or further digital works. The Dream VR project, for example, was first drawn digitally. The concept of the overgrown tree came from a fear I experienced in a dream…
What does experimenting look like in your practice, do you play, plan, mix both
Play with different mediums, watch videos of how to use the mediums, and write down some art notes. Art notes are really important to me, it is a very efficient way to record any ideas. They can be the scratch and later translate into blueprints of what I want to actually make.
Has anything been showing up in your head or your sketchbook a lot lately, shapes, textures, feelings?
Lately a lot of cubism and social realism. We are in a such lucky time as creatives and artists because everything is out there. We can present our works to people that lives thousands of miles away. I like to combine stuffs. I think the way a new idea is shaped is getting inspired by everything first, then translate into a new but similar form. I think about combining the different “isms” a lot lately.
What do you hope someone might feel or notice when spending time with your work, especially the newer immersive pieces?
I just hope they feel whatever they feel, as long as those feelings are genuine. My work isn’t meant to please everyone. Some people have looked at my art and assumed I’m a depressed person, and that is ok. Art is a medium reflect who we are. I want to do my part, being a responsible artist, that means everything I make is thoughtful and prepared.