Mutation, part of me — HONGRU ZHANG

Title：Stretched Form
Year: 2025
Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex
“Stretched Form” is about the body in a tense position. It shows skin like materials being stretched to their breaking point almost tearing. It shows something physical and emotional. It shows the pulling and stretching, holding in and tearing apart. It shows pressure and resistance.

Steel hooks are essential to the work. They provide anchors and give a sense of skeleton. They feel foreign and invasive. In response, the latex stretches like human skin. It reveals what is underneath. It highlights a sense of vulnerability.

The form of the work is also alienated. It comments on identity. It reveals that identity is not set in stone. It is constantly changing and unstable. In addition, it highlights quiet strength. It demonstrates resistance that is contained within the work.

Title: Mutation, part of me
Year: 2025
Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex

“Mutation, part of me,” depicts an internal shift that is hard to see: slow growth, expansion, and the formation of new shapes. You have the bones of the human body, but something new starts to form, neither entirely foreign nor familiar.I don’t show mutation as a split, more a continuation. The image is about an internal process of becoming. I overlay organic texture onto staged imagined anatomy. Maybe also we can see that change is not what separates us from ourselves, but it’s just another way of being ourselves.

Title: Mutation, part of me
Year: 2025
Medium: Steel, Fabric and Latex