We had the good fortune of connecting with Haochen Zhao and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Haochen, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I love risks as much as I hate them. To me, risks mean danger and pain, but it also means surprise, opportunity, vitality and beautiful miracles. Making art is all about taking risks and embracing challenges. Artists have to be brave, otherwise their hands are tied. I basically can’t create without risks. I rely on all the random accidents that happen when I work and I believe those moments are what make my work more lively, natural and genuine. I love to use materials that are not easy to control. Liquid pigments are my favourite when I apply them to my soft sculptures. And when I make ceramics, it feels even better because there’s no way that you can completely control the caly, glaze or fire. It makes my heart beat every time I check out my pieces out of kiln and it takes time to accept what comes out. Sounds scary, but isn’t it exciting? I’m sure that if I don’t take any risks, my work is dead and so I’m I. Risks take me to freedom, while safety sometimes means constraint.
However, I’m actually not a person that’s very brave to take all the risks. Since reaching adulthood, I have traveled and studied in a couple of different countries and cities. I feel lucky enough to have all the opportunities. All of the experiences expanded my life in unexpected ways and brought me the most precious memories. I won’t be myself if I didn’t take all the risks. But I have to admit that sometimes I regret taking the risks because they made me too painful and unsecured. I guess I need a balance between danger and safety and I’m still learning not to be too greedy for different experiences. After all, I think as an artist, I need a relaxing and easy attitude towards life. If things become too serious and heavy, my art will also die.
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
In the past few years, I’ve been making a lot of mixed media sculptures. Among all the materials I tried, I love soft sculpture and ceramics the most. It is very interesting to me because the two media are just the opposite. I use fabric and polyester stuffings to make those very gentle and deformable softies. And at the same time, I make ceramics that are crispy, hard and fragile. However, in fact, I found them similar. It is that for both of the media I can’t have 100% control. I love how fluid pigments make their own marks on fabric, and how glazes flow when they are heated. Those processes make me feel like my work is alive. They have their own fate and sometimes I just need to wait and see.
I think the most difficult part is somehow like parenting. I have to give up the stiff ideas about what I think my work should be like and accept the way they are. I’m like a parent who is learning how to get along with my teenage children. I try to respect them and let them go every time. I believe that for art making I can never have full control. And if I want to fully control everything, I will waste my energy and the outcome will be horrible. That is the same when it comes to my life. Disasters happen when I stick to something and miracles happen when I admit that I’m not god who can determine everything. In fact, I can’t determine anything. I need to be open and let other factors get involved in my life. I need to be sensitive about the information the environment gives me. I usually choose to do something because I feel the support and kindness of the universe. I think this is the most important lesson I learned from art making.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Let me first think about where I should talk about. For the past year I lived in Baltimore, and the past month in New York, but right now I’m in Hong Kong and will head back to my hometown Taiyuan very soon. I guess there are already too many recommendations people can find for New York and Hong Kong, and when I was in Baltimore I spent most of my time at school studios. (I love my school so much hehe.) So I think I can talk about my hometown a little bit. Taiyuan is a rather small city in Northern China. I love it when it is in autumn. It is a great season for site seeing now. Like a lot of Chinese cities, Taiyuan is a city full of history. It is most famous for its historical architecture. The Jinci Temple is one of the places most travellers have to go when they visit Taiyuan. There are cypress trees that are thousands of years old and I’m sure they look great in the fall. I also like to visit villages around the city. People used to live in caves built on the loess plateau and now there are still caves in use. For eating, I highly recommend an old restaurant called Qinghe Yuan. There’s a kind of soup called Tounao, which means “head and brain”. But of course, there is no brain in it. The soup was made of fried flour, lotus root, mutton, yams, chives and other herbs. There’s also some yellow rice wine in it. Sounds weird, right? Not everyone likes it. It’s just like Douzhir(mung bean milk) in Beijing. It tastes weird, but local people love it. You can’t find it anywhere else, and if you travel to the city, it will be a pity if you didn’t try it. Along with Tounao, people usually have mutton Sui Mais. They are typically North China flavor and very different from cantoness Siu Mais. And I’m sure they are delicious to a lot of people. A week is not a very long trip, but enough for Taiyuan since it’s not a very big city. If there are some days left, I’d recommend the biggest water fall on the yellow river, Hukou Waterfall. It is 5h driving from Taiyuan but it is definitely worth it.
The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
That definitely has to be my best artist friend and mentor, Amber Ma (ig@amberwonderland). She is an amazing storyteller and visual artist herself and she was my mentor when I applied for a master’s program at Maryland Institute College of Art. At that time, I just started creating my own art and she’s the one who guided me through a lot of things. I think creating is an expanding of life. I need to release myself and set myself free for adventures. This can be very difficult for artists as beginners because we are used to living in a world of already-made rules and discipline. We can be terrified when it is the time to give up all the rules and start making our own in our own world. But Amber was the one who encouraged me, opened my mind and set me free. She let me know that it’s totally OK for me to do anything with any materials in my art world. I was the kind of person that’s very easy to be intimidated and fall into self-doubt. So it could have been very difficult for me to become an artist and develop my own style without her. To me Amber is a great art educator and best friend. Also I love the school I just graduated from very much. Maryland Institute College of Art is really a most ideal playground for new artists. I love all the instructors I met there and all the beautiful colorful courses. My art expanded and developed a lot during the two years when I studied there.
Website: https://haochenzhao.cargo.site/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinylittletree.art/