Between Ornament and Memory

Zhou Jing is a visual artist based between Shanghai and London. Her practice spans expressive mark-making, immersive installations, and material-led experimentation. Drawing from Eastern philosophies and trained at the Glasgow School of Art in Fashion & Textiles design, Zhou’s work weaves personal mythology, vivid imagery, and unconventional media into explorations of gender, loss, and alienation. At its core, her practice probes the psychological terrain of contemporary womanhood, intimacy, and trauma, challenging comfort, aesthetics, and the reliability of memory.

Zhou’s visual language can be seen as a cross-cultural tapestry of the psyche, where ornament, texture, and material experimentation converge. Moving between Eastern decorative traditions and Western abstraction, her works oscillate between order and rupture, intimacy and distance. Patterned surfaces reminiscent of textiles and ceramics merge with visceral flows of colour, while sculptural interventions in resin, pearls, and metallic elements transform trauma and tenderness into layered, symbolic abstraction.

Her collage ZHOU XIANG YOU XING (Fortune's Bloom) - Dawn of Hope employs brushwork resembling textile weaving and geometric repetition, as if stitching between skin and fabric. Candy-coloured fields interlock in uneven formations, revealing a life still unsettled. Overlapping floral and grid-like forms embody the encounter between Eastern ornament and Western abstraction, while droplet motifs evoke bodily fluids, tears, or seeds, hinting at intimacy and trauma as two sides of the same experience.

ZHOU XIANG YOU XING (Fortune's Bloom) - Dawn of Hope, 2024

Comprehensive Material, 100 x 100cm

The work ZHOU XIANG YOU XING (Fortune's Bloom) - Emerald Glow demonstrates Zhou’s command of pattern and spatial resonance. Built upon interlaced grids and arcs, its deep green square - framed in gold - anchors the composition with the weight of jade, at once solid and enigmatic. Evoking ritual structures and protective icons, the work bridges geometry’s rational calm with the symbolic warmth of spirituality. Repetitions of dots, lattices, and lines create a visual pulse akin to breath, suggesting resilience, renewal, and solemn contemplation.

ZHOU XIANG YOU XING (Fortune's Bloom) - Emerald Glow, 2018 - 2023

Comprehensive Material, 60 x 60cm

Her work will be showcased in digital format at fables - SWANFALL ART ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2025, at the end of August. This exhibition celebrates contemporary voices and imaginative storytelling, offering audiences an immersive encounter with art and narrative.

ZHOU XIANG YOU XING (Fortune's Bloom) 11, 2018 - 2023

Comprehensive Material, 60 x 60cm

ZHOU XIANG YOU XING (Fortune's Bloom) 14, 2018 - 2023

Comprehensive Material, 60 x 60cm

Images: ©Zhou Jing, Courtesy of the Artist

Editor: MIAO