Senior Cici Zhu has had an interest in art for as long as she can remember. Beginning in elementary school, she developed a habit of drawing every single day. “Whenever I’m drawing or doodling, I don’t really need to think, and it’s just a very therapeutic process for me,” she shared.
Zhu credits her mother for her unwavering support in her growing passion for art. In addition, she cites her mother’s friend, GuoPei, a well-known fashion designer, for inspiring and introducing her to design, specifically in fashion. “I remember when I was little, I would always go visit her studio and see her shows in Paris,” she recalled.
In middle school, Zhu focused on fashion design and graphics. She attended an art school in Irvine, the Artist Lab, for two years, taking classes in oil painting, graphic design, fashion design and many other forms of art. At 8 years old, she began to develop an interest in space stating “When I began to build miniatures and DIY houses, I would imagine how space can shape human activity.” It led to her taking architecture classes at the Artist Lab, developing a love for architecture. “It tells human stories and involves problem solving. Every time I come up with a design that solves a specific problem for a community, it becomes the most rewarding moment of the design process.” Zhu shares.
In high school, she began working with technical drawings and physical models to help visualize spaces. Zhu said “It is very flexible because you can see architecture from a drawing or 2D types of lens. But this year, I want to focus more on making actual models.”
At Poly, Zhu contributed her unique perspective to the classroom in Ceramics in her sophomore year and AP Art in her junior and senior years. Visual Arts Department Chair Arnor Bieltvedt shared, “[Cici] is a great class leader and inspires her classmates with her excellent work ethic and very thoughtful, interesting work.”
Zhu also utilizes her passion for art to make a difference in the community. She leads a community engagement club called Illuminating the Path, which most recently organized a significant experience event involving tie-dying at the Pasadena Public Library.
Her first exhibition, a community art project, featured a large installation composed of individual hexagon canvases that she collected from around the world. Within her exhibition, she dedicated a separate room to highlight the St. Mark’s School, which was affected by the Eaton Fire, bringing their stories to a larger audience and helping raise money to support the school.
Each hexagon canvas, painted by a different individual, expressed the thoughts and stories of the painter, and when brought together, created a powerful image of the power art holds in communication and identity. On opening day, Zhu shared how many visitors told her that they could relate to the stories told on the canvases. Zhu reflects, “I think it’s really the connection between art and people, and just giving people hope through art. That’s very meaningful to me.” For her, art serves as a bridge between her interests in humanity and design. “During those design processes, I can actively think of people interacting with the space, and it just makes everything so much more fun,” she states.
She named Alvaro Siza Vieira, a Portuguese architect, as someone she looks up to because of the deeper meaning and level of intentionality in his work.
When asked about her personal style, Zhu thoughtfully replied, “I don’t really want to define myself into one style.” Her artistic ability and interests extend from realistic to abstract, from fashion design to physical modeling. Zhu notes the many different approaches to creating art, comparing it to STEM fields: “It takes research and experimentation to get the final result,” she said, striving to integrate this in her design process.
Zhu’s work ethic and care for her projects are evident throughout her design process. She describes inspiration as something that cannot be quantified by time, but rather as something that can strike at any moment. On her current project, a wearable architecture project that combines her two passions, design and architecture, she spent three weeks brainstorming and continues to develop her ideas toward a satisfactory point.
In the future, Zhu does not want to be defined by one particular interest; instead, she hopes to maintain an interdisciplinary approach. She wants to attend a school that allows her to further explore her passion for architecture, humanity-related fields and business.
Through her community-based art projects, Cici Zhu has left a lasting impact on Poly and the wider community, inspiring all those around her. We can be sure that wherever her passion takes her, Zhu will continue to bring her unique perspective and compassion to inspire and help others through her art.
