Interview with: Chengzhe Zhang 

August 2025

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Welcome, first and foremost, tell us about your background and why you choose to pursue this career.

Do you remember the first artwork that moved something inside you?

My name is Chengzhe (CY) Zhang, and I’m an architect, landscape designer, and also an artist. Ever since I started studying architecture and landscape, I’ve been fascinated by land art — by that delicate balance and ongoing dialogue between what nature creates and what we, as humans, shape. I’ve always been drawn to life’s mysteries, but one moment that really stayed with me was seeing the Nazca Lines for the first time. Those vast, cryptic patterns carved into the earth filled me with a sense of awe and curiosity I couldn’t shake. Later, when I discovered Robert Smithson’s Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, it felt like a door had opened — one that led me to explore the edges where landscape, nature, and art meet. Since then, I’ve been chasing that same feeling — of wonder, discovery, and connection — in my work and my art.

 

How do you define yourself in the creative industry?

I see myself as an artist of space. My creative process often begins with careful observation — of the site, the surrounding natural elements, phenomena, and the subtle interactions between people and nature. I draw inspiration from these quiet narratives and translate them into spatial design. What I enjoy most is the artistic expression that emerges from this process — finding the hidden relationships between things, and giving them form through design. To me, the value of creativity lies in revealing those deeper connections and making them felt through space.

 

Your practice is developed around different mediums, a multidisciplinary approach, tell us about your practice?

My creative practice is very much multidisciplinary, and I love starting with sketching — it helps me quickly capture the atmosphere or spatial feeling in my mind before diving into digital tools. From there, I often work with 3D software like Rhino, Unity, Blender, or Unreal Engine to develop the details. What excites me most is pushing the boundaries of these tools — sometimes through coding — to achieve effects that wouldn’t be possible through conventional modeling alone. I also enjoy incorporating sound or music into my work, experimenting with layered visual and auditory experiences. For me, design is not just visual — it’s about creating immersive, multi-sensory environments.

 

What inspires you, where do the ideas come from? How do you develop your projects?

One of the biggest sources of inspiration for me is the work of photographer Shoji Ueda. There’s a particular image that has stayed with me — a shirtless man standing on a pier by the sea, legs apart, holding a window frame that obscures his torso and face. The scene feels surreal and minimal, with a vast sky and a small portion of land anchored by a cliff. That image sparked something in me. I began to imagine what it would feel like to take that surreal framing into a completely different context — like an endless desert. A mirage, for instance, can amplify that sense of being confined or defined by a frame. I became fascinated with the idea of seeing a whole new world through a window — one that shifts the relationship between scale, body, and landscape. That’s often how my projects begin: with a visual or poetic moment that stirs something, then I explore how to translate it spatially — through form, material, light, and sometimes digital or sound-based layers. It’s about building a world around a feeling.

 

What is the meaning or creative motivation behind your work?

The core motivation behind my work is to use virtual environments to explore forms of land art that would be nearly impossible to realize in the physical world. I've always been fascinated by the desert — treating it as a kind of vast, empty canvas. It’s a place where scale becomes emotional, and where human presence feels both fragile and powerful. Through my work, I try to simulate what it might mean to place monumental sculptures in such an expansive, unforgiving landscape — not just as aesthetic objects, but as a way to express the tension and coexistence between humans and nature. This process feels like a kind of experiment — testing how digital tools can help us imagine new forms of environmental expression, and how art can exist in spaces that don’t yet physically exist.

 

We are at the end of this short interview, would you like to add something else about your artistic research?

How did you find collaborating with our gallery?

As an artist, I hope to always stay true to my curiosity — to keep exploring new mediums and forms of expression. There’s something really beautiful about not settling into one way of working, but allowing the work to evolve and surprise you. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with your gallery. I actually discovered many inspiring artists through your social media, and that made me want to be part of this platform — to share my work and connect with a wider audience.