Tracing The Invisible: Mosaz’s Spiritual Cartographies In Contemporary Art (9 Pics)
In today’s ever-shifting artistic landscape, Mosaz (Zijun Zhao) maintains a quietly introspective presence. Her practice centers on drawing and painting, often rooted in a sensitive response to bodily experience, memory, and symbolic space. Rather than making bold declarative gestures, she favors subtle, open-ended compositions that invite a kind of silent dialogue. This slow and nearly still quality in her work stems not from strategy, but from a long-standing, personal devotion to art as a space of honest engagement.
Trained in illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Mosaz gradually moved away from representation and into fields where structure is porous and meaning remains in flux. Her work has been shown at international institutions including the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Palazzo Bembo in Venice, CICA Museum in South Korea, and Doordom Gallery in the UK. She has been recognized with awards such as the Leonardo da Vinci International Prize and Premio Firenze XLI Edizione, and her writing has appeared in Art Maze Mag, Al-Tiba9, and The Woven Tale Press.
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A Joyful Funeral 1
In A Joyful Funeral II, Mosaz composed a visual meditation on mourning—one that evaded clarity. The fragmented forms and pale hues do not present death as an event, but as an extended emotional state. In The Lagoon, inspired by a short story by Joseph Conrad, she translates a literary atmosphere into image, not by illustration, but through tension, absence, and suggestion.
For Mosaz, art has always unfolded slowly. Many moments in her creative process are not oriented toward completion, but toward gently circling a feeling that resists being named. This tempo is not calculated—it simply reflects the quiet relationship she has developed with her materials over time. Within nearly motionless lines and forms, she remains open and attentive, trusting that certain layers of perception require time and care to emerge.
A Joyful Funeral 2
Her sensitivity extends to her curatorial and critical work. In 2024, she was invited to serve as a juror and academic committee member for the China-Italy Contemporary Art Yearbook, a cross-cultural project exploring the evolving languages of contemporary expression. During the review process, she focused not only on formal experimentation, but also on how artists embedded fragility, delay, and resistance into their methods. One installation, made of salvaged wood and zinc-coated metal, leaned precariously against a wall, capturing the exhaustion behind modern structures. Another painting employed low-saturation green and light-sensitive material to create a blurred atmosphere that seemed to refuse visual clarity altogether.
She has also served on the jury panel of the Genoa Biennale and curated multiple online exhibitions focused on non-institutional, spiritually charged practices. Across all roles—artist, curator, writer—Mosaz continues to explore how images can serve not just as reflections, but as spaces of quiet intervention.
Erysichthon
Longevity
Maternity
Nature
Fetal God 1
Untitled
A Woman
These start off as interesting then bizarre and sadly just silly as the last two show. Sorry.
These start off as interesting then bizarre and sadly just silly as the last two show. Sorry.
