Zhang calls her practice Reversed Chinoiserie. Unlike traditional Chinoiserie: the Western imitation of Chinese art since the 18th century, her work looks outward, viewing the West through Chinese eyes. In her color drenched works, she explores the distance between humans, nature, and modern civilization, painting the awe, longing, and quiet fear of people living within cities yet estranged from the natural world. Windows, armor, and stage-like settings recur in her work as fragile borders between safety and danger, intimacy and alienation.
Blending narrative writing and painting, Zhang builds her compositions like cinematic or theatrical scenes. Her hermaphroditic figures, both masculine and feminine, real and imagined, symbolize the tension between opposites: East and West, body and mind, solitude and community. Influenced by her background in theater and Peking Opera, Zhang translates emotional rhythm and gesture into color and light, creating a hybrid language between script and image.
Her works have been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, Shanghai, and Baltimore, and featured by CBS News and many other international press. Zhang is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Illustration American Photography Award, iJungle Illustration Award, Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship Award, PIE International Illustration Next ILLUST Award, and the inaugural Art of Racing Championship of Preakness Stakes in Baltimore.