The Artist

Engineer-turned-conceptual-artist Michael Zheng was born in China and is currently based in San Francisco. His art is primarily focused on cultivating the viewer's awareness of their own perceptual process.

His practice of Zen Buddhism has a profound influence on his art. By skillfully reconstituting the formal and cultural elements of a given situation, his work illuminates the poetic and transcendent moments inherent in daily life. Conceptual in nature, his work often takes the form of performance, site-specific installation, and drawings.

Michael has exhibited his work worldwide, including in the Baltic Triennial at the ICA/London, Vancouver Biennale, Portland Museum of Art Biennial/USA, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria/Canada, Macao Museum of Art/China, SAVVY Contemporary/ Berlin, Berkeley Art Museum/USA, as well as in Marina Abramovic Institute West, Contemporary Jewish Museum, de Young Museum, 500 Capp Street, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, all in San Francisco.

He has received fellowships from MacDowell and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His works have been featured in books including ⟪In the present moment - Buddhism, contemporary art, and social practice⟫ by Haema Sivanesan, and reviewed in Sculpture Magazine, Yishu, Artweek, Shotgun Review, San Francisco Chronicle, SF Weekly, The BayCitizen, Portland Phoenix, Neue Rheinische Zeitung and Rheinische Post in Germany, Lietuvos Zinios and Lietuvos Rytas in Lithuania, and the Artists Magazine in Taiwan, among others.