We asked San Francisco-based artist Haoyun Erin Zhao about her artistic process and creative journey. Take a behind the scenes look at the inspiration behind her solo show Cloud Inscriptions, which features paintings that explore movement and impermanence, evoking the ethereal, transient nature of existence. Cloud Inscriptions is currently on view through June 29th, 2025. Join us on Saturday, June 14th from 5-6:30pm for an artist talk and presentation with Erin. RSVP here!
Can you talk a bit about your childhood? When did you realize you were an artist?
I grew up in Guiyang, a city in Southwestern China, in an unconventional household where I was mainly raised by my grandfather. He was a school president, a devoted reader, and a skilled calligrapher. His love for literature and the arts deeply shaped my early understanding of beauty and meaning. He also became my greatest supporter when it came to art. He took me to every art class, encouraged my curiosity, and nurtured my creative spirit from a young age.
While there weren’t any professional artists in my family, creativity was always present. My father played the guitar, and my cousin was my childhood art idol. I often joined her and her art class on field trips, which sparked my fascination and inspired me to pursue art more seriously. My great-grandmother and grandmother were of Bouyei ethnicity, a group known for their exquisite embroidery and batik traditions. The beauty and craftsmanship in those traditions also made a deep impression on me. I was a curious child and always found joy in creating with my hands.
I don’t think there was ever a single moment when I realized I was an artist. It felt more like a slow unfolding, a quiet recognition that this was how I made sense of the world and stayed connected to it.
You’ve said that creativity is ‘learning how to be a child’ – can you expand a little bit on this sentiment?
Yes, when I say that, I mean returning to a place of openness, curiosity, and wonder. Imagine thinking before you knew the “rules.” We all carry our experiences with us, but true creativity often asks: how can we honor those experiences while letting go of the preconceptions and biases that come with them?
Children naturally create without self-judgment. They don’t worry about categorizing things or making perfect sense of everything right away. That uninhibited approach is something I try to hold onto in my practice. I believe creativity asks us to trust what we feel before we try to name it, to play, to wander, to stay curious about the unknown. My work is rooted in those impulses: not to explain, but to explore, and to stay receptive to beauty, ambiguity, and mystery.
How do you start a painting? When did you begin to incorporate airbrushing into your work?
I have a habit of keeping a sketchbook, and I usually begin my studio day by filling a few pages with thumbnail-sized drawings using pencils and colored markers. It’s a way to warm up, like tuning an instrument. It helps me ease into a rhythm before moving onto larger works.
When it comes to painting, I usually begin with a feeling rather than a fixed form. Sometimes it’s a specific color, a texture, or a vague emotional atmosphere that comes to mind. I sit with that quietly before starting the physical process. My compositions often unfold intuitively, layer by layer.
I started incorporating airbrushing into my work in 2023. Before that, translucency and gradients had already been important qualities in my practice, which I was achieving primarily through printmaking techniques. When I shifted my focus back to painting, I wanted to retain that sense of softness and light between layers. Airbrushing offered a way to do that. I was drawn to its subtlety, the way it allows for smooth transitions and fluid shifts in tone. There’s something ephemeral about it, like light filtering through mist, and that quality felt deeply aligned with the visual language I’ve been developing.
The works in Cloud Inscriptions seek to “capture the essence of that which cannot be fully grasped, but can only be experienced through a brief, meaningful glance.” Can you elaborate on this idea and how you capture it through your work?
There are moments in life that feel deeply profound or transformative, but the more you try to explain them literally, the more they seem to slip away. The paintings in Cloud Inscriptions are echoes of those moments, not declarations but glimpses. I’m drawn to what exists just beyond the edges of comprehension: the subtle, the shifting, the felt but not fully seen.
Visually, I work with translucent layers, soft gradients, and floating forms that resist easy identification. The way I create shapes feels like developing a personal visual language, one that isn’t meant to be read but sensed. I want the forms to evoke something familiar yet elusive, like recalling a dream that lingers in feeling even as the details dissolve.
Stardust Symphony - 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 48x60 in
What inspired the work in Cloud Inscriptions?
This body of work is a continuation of my series Letter to the Unknown, which grew from a fascination with how we create visual information and interpret symbols, how language evolves, and how meaning is both shared and deeply personal. For Cloud Inscriptions, nature became a guiding force, not only its imagery, but its rhythms, its transience, and quiet teachings.
The idea of “inscribing” something onto clouds became a metaphor I kept returning to. It holds a paradox: the urge to leave a lasting mark paired with the acceptance that nothing is permanent. This tension between permanence and impermanence, control and surrender, shaped both the concept and form of these paintings.
While the question of how to inscribe meaning onto something as fleeting as a cloud may remain unresolved, the title Cloud Inscriptions gently suggests that meaning is not found in permanence but in the fluidity and presence of each moment.
Light and shadow are prevalent in your work, and this show seems to draw on those concepts both thematically and visually – encouraging us to contemplate the connections between nature and our own emotional landscapes. How do you navigate the mental and artistic process of ‘transcribing’ these complex concepts?
Light and shadow have always been more than just visual elements in my work. They are emotional registers. One cannot exist without the other, and that duality mirrors how I experience the world. Beauty and fragility often intertwine, and there is a quiet strength in moments of tenderness. These subtleties are what I try to honor in my process.
Nature is a profound source of inspiration for me. You might recognize glimpses of birds, butterflies, foliage, flowers or water in the work. Just as often, you might sense something more intangible such as the rhythm of a melody, the vastness of the cosmos or the fleeting colors of a sunset. Nature teaches us to be present, to notice subtle shifts and to embrace the beauty of impermanence.
In the studio, I work intuitively, letting each painting unfold in response to what feels present. I listen, translate and respond to the emotional undercurrents of the moment. Airbrushing allows me to build soft layers and subtle transitions where tone and transparency shift as delicately as emotional states.
My hope is that the paintings speak not only to what we see in nature and in our surroundings but also to what they quietly reflect back to us, our inner tides, our memories and our longing for connection.
