Yuzhe Yan

Yuzhe Yan (Ashley), born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, is an interdisciplinary artist currently living and working in Los Angeles. Having lived in various countries, she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the China Academy of Art and she is expected to graduate with a Master of Fine Arts degree from ArtCenter College of Design in Spring 2025. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Taiwan’s 121 ArtSpace, as well as in Los Angeles at The Box Gallery and 4C Gallery. She has also participated in the Kaohsiung Art Fair in Taiwan.

Yuzhe’s artistic practice revolves around the concept of “body transformation”, treating the body as an open, limitless site of transformation—one that becomes a stage for the coexistence, deconstruction, and reconfiguration of gender and species. The figures she creates exist in a constant state of metamorphosis, shifting between inanimate objects, fantastical hybrid beings, and fictional creatures, all emerging from the subconscious.

Through immersive environments, Yuzhe explores themes of power, identity, and bodily control under capitalism. In her constructed worlds, the environment remains conscious while the characters become unconscious puppets, inverting traditional perceptual hierarchies. She conceptualizes this space as purlieu, a term historically referring to areas beyond legal jurisdiction, where marginalized genders and species transcend binary constraints. By intertwining her interest in hybrid beings with the visual language of body deformation, Yuzhe exposes the complexities of identity, representation, and transformation.