Excerpts from an interview with Xiaoping Zhou
by Leslie Walfish
The Allen Priebe Gallery at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh is honored to present The Migration and Rooting of Art, an exhibition by renowned artist Xiaoping Zhou. Xiaoping Zhou was born in Shanghai, China, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg, where she earned a "Meisterschüler" degree in sculpture under British steel sculpture master Tim Scott, and a Master's in "Open Art Space" under renowned German urban designer Prof. J. Hoelzinger. Her work has been exhibited across Europe and Asia, and she has received numerous awards, including the Danne Prize (Germany), Outstanding Urban Sculpture Awards (China, 2004, 2006, 2011), and Gold Medals at the World Horticultural Expositions (2014, 2018, 2022). In 2019, she was awarded the Outstanding Individual Award by the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Zhou currently lives and works between Nuremberg and Shanghai.
Xiaoping Zhou sat down for an interview with UW Oshkosh’s Campus Curator, Leslie Walfish in the Allen Priebe Gallery on the opening day of Zhou’s exhibition. This is an excerpt from the interview:
Leslie Walfish: Your dual cultural heritage means a lot to you and it is evident in your work. Can you share some elements of these cultures that you feel come through in your work?
Xiaoping Zhou: My work is an investigation into the dialogue between the Bauhaus principle of "form follows function" and the Chinese philosophy of "void and substance complementing each other," delving into the spaces between materiality and cultural narrative.
LW: Visitors to the Allen Priebe Gallery exhibition will get to see a wide variety of your artistic output through videos, designs, models, photographs of planning sessions, images of your outdoor installations, and current projects you are working on.
XZ: Yes, this exhibition features documentation of over 90 large-scale public sculptures created over the past two decades. It shows how I utilize a diverse range of materials—including traditional wood and stone, industrial steel, found objects, and innovative mixed media.
LW: Your public sculptures thoughtfully consider how people will interact with them. You design the placement of your sculptures, the lighting, and the natural elements surrounding the fabricated pieces people. You even think about how to select material so that people are encouraged to sit on them – why do these elements matter to you so much?
XZ: People are at the heart of all my work. What I create directly affects people – it is for them. The space is how people will interact with them, the light and landscaping is how you make it inviting. You have to consider the human first and create something that they will connect with. It is a collaboration, and people have to live in harmony with them.
LW: I am glad you brought up the idea of collaboration, your series “Pillow and Chair” is all about collaboration.
XZ: In this series artists are invited to make their own creative responses to my fragile yet, resilient wire sculptures. This is an ongoing cross-border action, now in its 11th year. It has involved over 40 artists worldwide and symbolizes the delicate yet powerful connections that bind diverse identities. I have collaborated with artist from Germany, Austria, Czech, Japan, Canada, and America. For this exhibition, I collaborated with University of Wisconsin Oshkosh artist Prof. Andrew Redington and renowned Wisconsin-based artist Jon Wos.
LW: What would you say connects the different series showcased in this exhibition?
XZ: When an artist creates something, no matter the material or subject, the pieces have the same core, the same nuclear center which comes from the heart of the artist. My work is about how we humans, as animals on this earth, live in a structure, an order, but we have an inner fragility, and an inner spirit that is trying the break free. My work is about the push and pull between ridged structure, power, and the changeable, the life experiences that create us. My work is about the poetic encounters that speak to the complexities of belonging in a globalized world.
Xiaoping Zhou’s exhibition "The Migration and Rooting of Art" is on view now in UW Oshkosh’s Allen Priebe Gallery through October 16, 2025. The exhibitions are free and open to all.
Leslie Walfish is the Director of Galleries, Campus Curator, and an Instructor in the Art Department at UW Oshkosh. She has an MA in Art History from the University of Arizona and an MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University.
