Haoyun Erin Zhao’s work for this project was inspired by cherished moments spent sharing wine with friends, family, and loved ones. Through vibrant compositions and romantic color gradients, she celebrates the essence of connection, love, laughter, and intimacy.
What captivated Zhao most about the project was its ability to create a multi-sensory experience, engaging sight, touch, smell, and taste. She believes that our strongest memories are often shaped by the interplay of these senses, especially in meaningful moments shared over wine.
Drawing from her own treasured wine-related experiences, Zhao creates imagery that evokes a sense of warmth, exploration, relaxation, and nostalgia. Her compositions are infused with hues of warm pink, delicate gold, rich garnet, deep burgundy, and verdant green, reflecting the fluidity, aromas, and sensory ritual of wine, from the swirl of the glass to the final sip.
Her work explores how color, form, and symbolic imagery can reveal the invisible structures that connect perception, emotion, and the natural world. Drawing from early training in calligraphy and ink painting as well as later engagement with Western art and philosophy, Zhao creates layered compositions in which translucent forms, calligraphic gestures, and symbolic motifs interact within shifting visual environments.
Haoyun Erin Zhao is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco, California, working primarily in painting, printmaking, and installation. Born in China, Zhao relocated to the United States at seventeen, and her practice is shaped by the intersection of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions.
