Erik Zou
Quarantine Clutter III
Watercolor on paper
22 x 30 in.
From the Artist
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I turned away from painting outdoor scenes containing landscapes and architecture and toward capturing interior surroundings. The pandemic, by placing me indoors, encouraged me to contend with and re-familiarize myself with the daily objects now relevant to my family’s daily lives. This stifling collapse of external and social freedom pushed me to find interest and curiosity in life indoors, through foodstuffs around the house. Many items in this painting, like the jar of lemons in honey water or the jar of garlic cloves, depict fermentations or long processes transforming traditional food items. Others, like the canned fish or Shin Ramen, reflect some of the long shelf-life items that became popular during the pandemic. In deliberately arranging these everyday items in still-life formats, I uncovered the sheer variety of color and vibrancy often hidden and unnoticed in them. These paintings hope to locate and illuminate the beauty of such objects.