OH Art Foundation is pleased to announce A Silent Piece of Stomach, a solo exhibition featuring the work of Zhizi Wu. On view from March 21st to April 13th, 2025, we invite all to join us for the exhibition opening on Friday, March 21st, from 7-10pm on the 3rd floor of the Zhou B Art Center.
This morning, I woke up to find my period had arrived – an old friend I had been waiting on for quite some time, I had been anticipating it since my walk along the pier last month. A warm stream surged between my legs, the liquid and viscera mixed with a slight foam, leisurely curving and flowing down to my knees before stopping there. Thick and rich, like a ginkgo leaf, it dripped as I walked, landing under my slippers, gradually becoming dirty like shards of ice in winter. After my shower, I stepped into my wardrobe and saw a drop of deep red blood resting on the floor. I reached down to wipe it off, only to feel its roughness and dryness – it was an innocent red button lying in the dim room, pretending to be a trace of menstruation.
My painting is that button.
— Zhizi Wu
If we consider the body as a vessel, is it then shaped by what stirs within it—or does the inverse hold true? Such imperfect science can only be illuminated by the artist: an anatomist in the metaphysical and paradoxical. Zhizu Wu’s work is altogether visceral yet dreamline, nostalgic yet timeless, devout yet irreverent—synthesizing the seemingly dissonant into corporeal storytelling. But the narratives written are not wholly her own. Unburdened by the impossible neutrality of observation, Wu instead utilizes its transformative nature to intertwine complexities of identity, sexuality, and relativity, drawing from the external world to give voice to the silenced and unseen.
A Silent Piece of Stomach is Zhizu Wu’s debut solo exhibition, but the body of work presented is far from elementary; indeed, she paints with a honed observer’s eye and an evident dedication to her practice. And though the concepts she explores are rooted in reality, the strokes of her brush diffuse its hard edges, illustrating distorted figures and landscapes that veil themselves from memory’s grasp—akin to waking up from a dream with déjà vu for a bygone realm. Perhaps, then, her research seeks not to uncover absolute truth, but rather a certain strangeness of flesh: that which tethers us to this world also is precisely what pulls us away.
Zhizi Wu (b. 2002, China) lives and works in Chicago, IL. She uses multi-media narratives, primarily oil painting, to record and respond to her perceptions of the surroundings. While highlighting the importance of being present, she paradoxically depicts distorted faces and objects, which result from an intense but reflective internal struggle.
Zhizi Wu’s works are appreciated for their expression of intimacy and unique personal experience. Her painting was featured in the Intimacism exhibition in Nashville, Tennessee.
Zhizi Wu is not the artist's legal name; her surname comes from her mother.
Any Inqui
