Graduation Show 2025: Bo Zhang | Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

30 August - 13 September 2025

  • Bo Zhang |

    Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

     

    Bo Zhang (b. 1988, China) is a visual artist based between Munich and Amsterdam. She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (DOGtime) in 2025 with a BFA in Expanded Painting, following an earlier academic career in cognitive psychology, including a PhD from the University of Twente and a background in user experience research.

     

    Working primarily with oil and acrylic on canvas, Zhang’s practice often begins with quiet observations from her surroundings. These moments evolve into paintings where colour subtly shifts, forms blur, and perspective gently bends. Deeply personal and reflective, her work is shaped by her life with birds and her enduring interest in how humans relate to the world around them. Rather than depicting only what is seen, she paints what might be sensed, remembered, or imagined - what lingers just beneath the surface. Her paintings invite slow looking, where meaning unfolds through tone, gesture, and detail.

     

    Zhang’s work has been exhibited in Best of Graduates 2025 at Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam, and is included in the collection of the AkzoNobel Art Foundation.

  • When walking alone along the Songhua River in Bo’s hometown of Harbin, China, she came across a balloon cart overflowing...

    Cheese, cheers, 2025, Oil on canvas, 115 x 90 cm

    When walking alone along the Songhua River in Bo’s hometown of Harbin, China, she came across a balloon cart overflowing with cheerful, smiley flowers and cartoon animals with innocent, wide puppy eyes. The unplanned arrangement of the balloons and the subtle tension beneath their playful appearance immediately caught her attention. Bo recreated this scene on canvas, introducing an undercurrent of unease beneath the surface cheerfulness.
  • This painting depicts a surreal scene: a sleeping man gently drifting downward from a starry night sky, his head resting...

    Daydreamer, 2023, Oil on canvas, 90 x 105 cm

    This painting depicts a surreal scene: a sleeping man gently drifting downward from a starry night sky, his head resting tenderly upon a plush, pink cloud of a pillow. Below him are some everyday objects – a cushion, a yoga ball, and a desk—suspended upside down in midair, falling toward a vast, empty space below. The painting subtly questions the routines of daily life and hints at a desire for escape that might only be found in (day)dreams.

  • Available to buy

    • Bo Zhang, Cheese Cheers, 2025, Oil on canvas, 115 x 90 cm

      Bo Zhang, 

      Cheese Cheers, 2025,

      Oil on canvas,

      115 x 90 cm
      Enquire
    • Bo Zhang, Daydreamer 2023, Oil on canvas, 90 x105 cm

      Bo Zhang,

      Daydreamer 2023,
      Oil on canvas,
      90 x105 cm
      Enquire
    • Bo Zhang, Farewell, 2025, Oil on canvas, 90 x 115 cm
      Bo Zhang,
      Farewell, 2025,
      Oil on canvas,
      90 x 115 cm
      Enquire