Yi Zhu

Lives and works in Beijing, China

Artist statement

I work through deconstruction and reconstruction, from generation to existence, moving across the boundary between the image and life to sense the tension and contraction within life itself. I am less interested in the forms of life than in how life expands, contracts, connects, and continually generates the desire to be alive through each breath. I use HTTP error codes as a contemporary visual language to mirror the behavioral dilemmas of our time—how we connect, rupture, and restart. For me, an error is not an endpoint, but the point where a structure shifts, breaks, and opens the possibility for something new to emerge. I continue to explore the tension between “from generation to existence” and “the meaning of being alive.” As artificial intelligence continues to generate new forms of existence, I ask: AI is existence. Life is being alive. Existence can be generated, but does being alive point to something that cannot be fully encoded—the desire, breath, tension, and instinct to reach outward and connect? I hope my work becomes a bridge between art and life. It is not meant to tell the viewer what life is, but to allow them, in the moment of looking, to feel their own breath, their own body, and the self that is still alive. Through me, you see yourself.

Artwork