Ping Zheng – My Mind

I am a painter from China who lives in Brooklyn. I make art as a self-employed artist, I like to paint and draw because I want to be express my experience and feelings from my life.

What’s your relationship with “The Mind”?

“The Mind” reminds me of one of my recent piece I made in the desert which is called, “My Mind”, because my inspiration is grounded in childhood memories of natural landscapes, where I felt free as a human in the outdoors, avoiding family pressures as being a girl at home.

How does your work relate to the theme “The Mind”?

Art is about how you view the world and I always want to be creative with my artwork and genuine with my paradoxical thoughts which is about the past and present in my life. I like spending a lot of time on processing and communicating with my artwork. I think this is how the subconscious mind brings me a particular focus on creativity, approaching art as a mean of personal development. My passionate belief in equality, males and females are just part of this universe.

Can you tell us how your Tai Chi practice has informed your art, or your life in general?

I’m left-handed person but there was time I had to use right hand because my mother who disliked me and felt I was weird. I think probably I used too much with my right hand, I found out my right shoulder and neck is weak and caused a lot of pains in the past. I’ve picked up with my left hand to do artwork and practiced Tai Chi since 2012, I see Tai Chi, partly is for my health benefit and partly it makes me to understand about flow of energy, how our body and mind work together and how to be balance.

Have you ever used the I-Ching to inspire or inform your pieces?

This is something new that I’ve just started to read I-Ching book, but I realized that my artworks have already connected to that since I did Taich. Taichi is related to I-Ching, and “Yin and Yang’ is very much about male and female, balance between strong and weak in nature and universe.

You started talking about your childhood, how has growing up in China moulded you as a person and as an artist?

Art helps me to understand about myself straggles of childhood memory which was being a girl. Nature was like antidote when I was little, I appreciated that aspect of my experiences from natural landscape. As a growing-up, I find myself that I don’t know if I am gay or not because of my parents matters, I think naturally a boy goes with a girl, like “Yin and Yang”, I don’t like to get married or somethings like that, I cherish my friendships with my male and female friends that they influence me on making artworks.

Find Ping here: zheng-ping.com