About

Bio:

Cindy Hsu Zell is a Los Angeles-based artist who has maintained a full-time studio practice for over a decade. She grew up near the San Gabriel Mountains and studied fine art and animation at the University of Southern California. Her approach to art is shaped by this backdrop of nature and movement, as well as a deep curiosity about perception, color, and the ways we experience the world around us.

Influenced by the atmospheric and sensorial qualities of the Light and Space movement, Zell’s work considers how color, reflection, and shadow can make a form feel both tangible and elusive. Her work is held in private collections internationally and has been featured in Domino, Luxe, Dwell, and Surface. She has exhibited since 2017, including presentations at Alcova Miami, the Affordable Art Fair in New York, and galleries throughout the country.

Artist Statement:

I make ceramic wall sculptures that explore gesture, memory, and surface. Some pieces rise from the wall in soft, curved forms shaped by gravity and touch, while others are built through layered applications of glaze, acrylic, resin, and pigment. Across both, reflective finishes catch and bend light, shifting between something tangible and something half-remembered.

My practice comes from a need to preserve what I struggle to remember. I document my life through lists, archives, and notes, translating that impulse into physical form in the studio. The sculptural works hold small embraces in place, while the layered surfaces follow fleeting images that blur, dissolve, and reappear through the kiln. These works are my way of holding onto what would otherwise disappear.

On Iridescence:

The iridescent surfaces in my work draw from a longstanding fascination with mother-of-pearl, a material used in Chinese decorative arts for thousands of years. I am drawn to its shifting color and luminous depth, qualities that make a surface feel both physical and elusive as it reacts to light and movement like the interior of a shell.

This material also carries a personal history for me. As a teenager, my mother sold mother-of-pearl jewelry. I would often go through bins of pendants and play with the pieces. Although my work does not directly reproduce traditional inlay, its iridescence creates a connection between material beauty, family memory, and cultural inheritance. The finish becomes a way of locating my work within that history while responding through a contemporary ceramic language.

Through these surfaces, I explore how an object can feel ancient and unfamiliar at once. Their reflective quality resists a fixed appearance, allowing each piece to continually transform in response to its surroundings and to the person viewing it. My hope is that the shifting surface can become a kind of portal, offering a momentary passage into another space where one can pause and find comfort.