In Severance is a/as a ghostly disease is a painting recently acquired for the Rotational Collection within the Parliament House Art Collections. Chinese-Australian artist Louise Zhang contemporary colours with shanshui (mountain and water), a form of traditional Chinese landscape painting.

In this work Zhang juxtaposes peach blossoms with flames. These symbols come from Chinese folklore, with the flowers representing abundance and longevity, and the flames referring to the Eighteen Levels of Hell in Chinese mythology. These dichotomies speak to Zhang’s exploration into her own identity as a Chinese-Australian artist. Zhang brings, what she describes as, a ‘Third Culture kid’ experience. She portrays a sense of hybridity and unease, explaining,

You don’t feel quite Australian in Australia, and you don’t feel quite Chinese in China—but you are of both. I found this created a third culture which is Chinese/Australian (…) Diaspora can be quite a large umbrella, and the term ‘third culture kid’ signals a certain western upbringing, but I’m still very attached to my culture, which isn’t western. So, there are a lot of dichotomies there that inform who I am and the work that I make.¹

Louise Zhang
Louise Zhang (born 1991) is a Chinese-Australian multidisciplinary artist well known for paintings, installations and sculptures that combine the aesthetically pleasing with the grotesque. In 2009 Zhang completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales and in 2014 a Master of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales Art and Design. Throughout 2016 and 2017 Zhang completed residencies in China. Zhang has had several public artworks commissions including the 2020 Sydney Lunar New Year Festival Moon Gates, and in 2020 was part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s collaboration with the MECCA brand. Zhang has exhibited internationally, and her work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of NSW.

References
1. As cited in, Luise Guest, ‘Portals to the Pure Land: A Conversation with Louise Zhang’, Cobo Social, 2022. Accessed online via: https://www.cobosocial.com/user/luiseguest