Li Zhang is an artist and educator at Iowa State University whose practice spans painting, drawing, and ceramics, with a focus on the relationship between the natural world and human experience, as well as the dialogue between Western and Eastern traditions. Her work has been exhibited in both national and international venues.
Li’s artistic practice draws inspiration from natural forms and processes, including growth, movement, transition, and the passage of time. Through silk painting, she works with mineral pigments layered carefully into silk, allowing translucency, texture, and gradual change to emerge. In her ceramic work, Li explores these same ideas through three-dimensional form, using hand-built shapes, carved surfaces, and visible traces of touch to reference vessels, stones, and weathered fragments shaped by time.
Blending traditional techniques with contemporary approaches, Li creates works that balance delicacy and strength, surface and structure. Across media, she continues to explore texture, color, and form, creating work that invites quiet reflection and emotional resonance.
Instagram: @ali_zhang_art