cynthia zhou art 🍉🌿

Hey!! ✨ Really excited to announce that I’m collaborating with the @philamuseum for AAPI Heritage Month. This is wild ‼️ and I’m feeling so very blessed :”-) Join us for the AAPI Heritage Month Celebration at the museum on May 9th, 5–8:30 PM. It’s pay-what-you-wish, and I’ll be running a little workshop!! (Psst, the first 500 people get a special piece of merch we’ve created from one of my paintings!!!) Save the date—more info to come ❣️ For this collaboration, I made a painting honoring the tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants who built the transcontinental railroad. Despite years of intense labor linking the eastern and western coasts, very little material history survives—to this day, no direct accounts (diaries, letters home, etc) from these Chinese workers has been found. In this painting, figures carry the railroad on poles like a dragon dance parade, weaving up and down the kite. Every Railroad Runs West, 2025 36 x 48 inches, oil, acrylic, and rusted metal on canvas 📸 Photo credit: @cocobanal Fun fact: the underpainting is done in a paint I mixed out of rusted metal! 🚂 We waded in the Schulykill river to fish out discarded railroad spikes from the Philadelphia railroad; many thanks to Tage for bringing me to the river and Jo for crushing the metal into dust. Goodness, I love trains. 🛤️🚋🚃🚊 It makes me so happy to embed particles of Philly history into the very heart of this project 😭 Stay tuned for more details about workshops and painting processes. Thank you again to the @philamuseum for this awesome opportunity and all my beautiful friends for your endless support. I love you! ❤️ Prints available in bio! #art #painting #oilpaint #oilpainting #philadelphiaart #philadelphiaartist #aapi #aapiheritage #railroad #transcontinentalrailroad #trains #trainspotting #cowboy #choochoo #yeahhhhtrains

Ant Chess, 2024 Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches each prints available in bio <3 haha do u ever just uhhh grow a chess board on ur back so u & ur bro can play chess with ants ….. yeah me too 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜 experimenting with unprimed canvas and scratching into cold wax!!! (after an inspiring conversation with @eve_greensweig about trying new techniques tyyy) idk if u can see it through the photos but the back and hair are layered with thick wax and etched with a pattern. more 2 come hehehehe 💥 this work is on display at @voxpopuligallery until 6/16!! swing by this friday 6/7 i will be there for first friday :-) #art #design #drawing #painting #oilpainting #oilpaint #phillyartist #philadelphiaartist #sanjoseart #sanjoseartist #draw #chess #chessgame #chessboard #canvas #artistsoninstagram #artistsofinstagram #sketch #sketching #voxpopuli

Tadpole Collector, 2024 Oil & acrylic on canvas, 28” x 40” prints are now available through link in bio 💕💕 #art #paint #painting #oilpaint #oilpainting #figurativepainting #figurativeart #draw #drawing #canvas #frog #egg #frogegg #frogart #pond #frogdrawing #tadpole #lifecycle #froglifecycle #philadelphiaart #philadelphiaartist #phillyart #phillyartist #artistsoninstagram #artistsofinstagram

i’ve been bouncing around a LOT these few months so thank you for your patience as i get back into painting! (╥﹏╥) in the meantime, here’s a repost of an old painting, along with some in progress shots i haven’t shared. i wasn’t a big fan of it, so i was super pleasantly surprised to see how kind folks were towards this painting! 😭💖 you guys are too nice 🙏 if you want prints, link is in my bio hehe <3 Pygmalion Effect, 2022 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 36” x 48” also, a borzoi i painted on acetate around the same time :}

hullo~~~ this is SO LATE BUT… i am deeply grateful to have received a fellowship to attend @vermontstudiocenter this past february!! vermont in the winter is breathtaking, and through conversations with incredible artists & writers, as well as a CRAZY huge studio space, i was able to explore really exciting new directions in my art practice (will share later!) thank you, so much, to all the wonderful staff and my beautiful talented fellow residents… i love you guys and hope we cross paths again!! xoxo ❤️‍🔥

🎨 free color theory workshop!! 🖌️ hihi everyone :-) happy new year’s eve!! to kick things off, join me for a chill free workshop on how to make ur colors ✨sparkle✨ we’ll go over how to mess around with saturation to take a regular reference photo into something really shiny (like the painting in the flyer above!!) beginner friendly and relaxed, just an hour~~ hang out, watch a live demo, and ask questions!! 📅 january 3rd, 2026 🕙 6 PM (EST) tap the link in bio to reserve ur spot hehe see you thereeee 😙

🚨 Open Call: Curatorial Residency 2026 — An Endless Meeting (Part of @collectivefutures.info )🚨 Hi friends :-) Posting this quite late in the timeline, but wanted to make a main feed post as a big final push!! My artist collective @voxpopuligallery is now accepting applications for a 2026 Curatorial Residency, part of Vox’s project An Endless Meeting: Collective Process, Artistic Labor, and the Politics of Working Together. This work coincides with the citywide Collective Futures festival! We’re inviting a curatorial duo — two artists/curators from a DIY space, artist-run initiative, or collective located 50+ miles outside Philadelphia — for a one-month residency (Aug 24–Oct 5, 2026). Selected curators will collaborate with Vox members and Philly collectives to develop an exhibition opening October 2, 2026. 💰 Includes stipend, housing, travel, production support, and access to Vox’s community and resources. If your work centers collective practice, cross-regional exchange, and the messy joy of collaboration then we want to hear from you! (If you start the application before the deadline, there will be a grace period 😙) 🗓️ Applications opens 11/8/2026 📅 Deadline Dec 31, 2025 🔗 Apply via SlideRoom (link in bio)

🪐🌷 VOX DROP 🌷🪐 do you looove local, independent arts?? i know you do. that’s why ur here. WELL what better way to show ur support than with a cute cozy hoodie!! this is the winter edition of our Freedom is an Endless Meeting shirt, designed by the awesome @stephaniebursese + i last year. now it’s back!!!! and will keep you warm 🔥🔥🔥 okay fr tho—your purchase will go towards my art collective, heart of my heart, @voxpopuligallery . if you live in philly i hope you have been affected beautifully by vox as much as i have. in 2025, we featured 226 artists across 18 visual arts exhibitions, welcomed 12 community arts organizations to curate monthly events open and free to the public, and hosted more than 90 public events featuring over 300 artists and collaborators. that’s lowkey craaaaazy. 🌀🌀 it’s also a lot of work, so your support really counts!! this merch is about the complexities of collaboration, group dynamics, and collective movement building. oversized, drop shoulder, and locally printed!! :-) oh and it’s LIMITED EDITION so preorders close in a few weeks!! link in bio 💋💋

Raffle closed! We’ve raised over $1300 for the four mutual aid funds, which you can find more about on @phillypalestinecoalition and @phillyforsudan ‘s pages. Thank you guys so much for coming out, supporting, and donating. From Sudan to Palestine,, free the people free the land! —— Missed us at the Philadelphia Art Museum? You can catch us tomorrow at the Solidarity Night Bazaar (hosted by @phillypalestinecoalition and @phillyforsudan ) and get a chance to win a $500 tattoo from iza or 5 prints from Cynthia. Anyone can participate, in-person at the event or from afar. We are accepting raffle entries from Venmo or Cashapp - just make sure to put the number of entries and your email. 100% of raffle entries will go towards 4 mutual aid efforts for Palestine & Sudan, along with 50% of our sales from vending. 🍉🌺🌿 ⏰ December 14th, 5-9 pm 📍 Asian Arts Initiative, 1219 Vine Street Philadelphia, PA 19107 Hope to see you there!

ta-daaa ✨ prints are FINALLY updated—i’m sorry if you asked me a while back and i never got to it! tldr i use inprnt, a third party site, and it’s awesome (would recommend) but im trying to put up my own shop to have better control over print pricing, distribution, etc etc. soonSOOOOON haha i promise 😭😭 but for now… its alive!! card formats too, for the holidays! 🪿💕 my list of available original pieces is also updated, dont be afraid to email about if something is for sale!! okay love you byyyyyyye!! 🦄🦄🦄 #oil #oilpaint #phillyart #phillyartist #prints

You. Me. Next Friday at the @visitpham holiday market 🧑‍🎨🎄✨ Join us Dec 12th from 5-8 pm at the Philadelphia Museum of Art! Come check out the collection and stop by our table to get some cool art! We’ll have prints, as well as ✨NEW✨ stickers and temporary tattoos in stock. Perf holiday gifts for friends (or yourself hehe!!) Come thru to say hi, excited to see y’all there 🎁

EDIT: registrations are now closed but keeping this up bc it seems to be well received hehe hiiiiiii wonderful people 🫶 today is the LAST DAY 😙🎉 to sign up for my oil painting course!! registrations close THIS EVENING 9 PM EST! thank you so incredibly much to all the new students 🐸 perfect for beginners, so if you’ve been wanting to learn how to paint, now’s your chance!! i truly put my heart into filming the lessons and i hope you like it as much as i do :”-) this idea is adapted from fashion reels that were trending a while ago—and i realized it could be adapted to painting too! as a reminder, here’s what you get with the class: 🎨 7.5+ hours of video lessons 🎨 10 structured modules 🎨 8 homework mini-projects and 1 final project 🎨 My personal feedback and support 🎨 Lifetime access 🎨 30-day money-back guarantee yippppeeeee!! link in my bio. love ya!!