About · 关于
Emily Zhang.
张子艾
Artist and student. Ink in one hand, a microphone in the other — drawings about the quiet, made by someone who lives in words.
Artist and student. Ink in one hand, a microphone in the other — drawings about the quiet, made by someone who lives in words.
Iam investigating my struggle and journey to fall asleep through a chickadee avatar — how consistent disruptions cause aversion to sleep instead of an anticipation for rest, and how the journey navigates through these disruptors before finding an eventual resolution.
The chickadee is small, easily startled, easily lifted. Across fifteen plates the bird drifts from a restless plane of marks into an immersion of warm geometry. The night isn't conquered so much as accepted. The medium shifts with the mood — ink, graphite, paint pen, watercolor; the chickadee stays.
我以一只山雀为化身，记录入睡的挣扎与旅程 —— 那些反复出现的干扰如何让人对睡眠从期待变为抗拒，又如何在层层阻碍中走向最终的安宁。在十五幅画中，小鸟从局促的线条走向温暖几何的怀抱 —— 夜晚不是被征服，而是被接纳。
Emily is a high-school senior at Flower Mound High School in Texas — the town where the chickadees of the Sustained Investigation were drawn. She works in ink, graphite, paint pen, and watercolor, and has been collecting Scholastic Gold and Silver Keys in both art and writing every year since 2023.
The other half of her practice is speaking. She has been on her school's varsity Speech and Debate team since freshman year, was a semifinalist at the Texas Forensics Association State Tournament, and was ranked among the top sixteen extemporaneous speakers in the state. Since 2024 she has also been the sole instructor of a weekly online extemporaneous-speaking class for the Chicago Northshore Academy, where she's now taught more than forty middle-schoolers across the country — writing the curriculum, the slides, and the homework herself.
Closer to home, she chairs the Social Committee of her school's Senior Engagement Council, organizing intergenerational programs at the Flower Mound Senior Center, and tutors K–12 math with Intellichoice, a Dallas nonprofit.
The drawings, then, come from someone who lives in language all day. The chickadee — small, easily startled, easily lifted — is mostly silent. That contrast is part of the point.
张子艾就读于德州 Flower Mound 高中 —— 也是《关于失眠的涂鸦》中那些山雀被一笔笔画出的地方。她以墨水、石墨、丙烯麦克笔与水彩作画，自 2023 年起每年都在 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards 的艺术与写作两个门类中获得金奖或银奖。
她的创作另一半是言说 —— 自高一起担任校演讲与辩论队的成员，曾入选德州演讲协会州赛半决赛，并跻身全州即兴演讲项目前十六名。2024 年起，她为芝加哥 Northshore Academy 设立并独自授课一门每周线上的即兴演讲课程，独立编写课程大纲、讲义与作业，已为全美四十余名 10–15 岁的学生授课。