This is Rachel Zhang's first solo show with the gallery, featuring large-scale paintings created in the last three years. Her works are explorations of the absurdities and existential anxieties surrounding questions of personal autonomy and the social roles we occupy concerning various systems of power. Through surrealist figurative scenes, she is interested in reflecting on and metaphorizing the evolving beliefs that have structured societies and their social hierarchies, moralities, and manifestations of control over our bodies.

The artist’s imagery is informed by a variety of sources, including satirical and dystopian fiction stories, 20th-century absurdist theater and literature, social psychology research (especially on conformity and obedience to authority), religious allegories, and lineages of personal histories as they relate to current events. This encompasses the intersections of Asian American histories, family narratives during 20th-century China, US history, and histories of women’s roles throughout time. Zhang sees her perspective on society through her works as coming from an Asian American female consciousness, with its complex relationship to visibility and othering.