Andrew Zou
MFA ’25 Photography
As a Chinese gay artist living in Boston, my work is a process of self-exploration about my identity and belonging in a cross-cultural society. For more than twenty years, I was struggling to learn how to be a straight man. Through self-portraiture of photography, I started to unlearn it.
I place myself in different spaces, thinking about what specific identities I hold in those moments—a son, a straight man, a gay man, a Chinese boy, a photographer. Then I ask myself: am I now learning how to be a gay man? It feels like I have just moved from one struggle into another.
I keep photographing, and I keep exploring the self. In these moments, where we meet ourselves in different situations, I continue searching. In the end, I will meet myself.
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Andrew Zou (b. 1990) is a Chinese artist based in Boston. His art practice employs photography, performance, glass and ceramic. He is a candidate for an MFA in photography at MassArt in 2025. His work is exhibited in the Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA), Rochester Contemporary Art Center (Rochester, NY), Shenzhen Luohu Museum (Shenzhen, China), Gallery 263 (Cambridge, MA), UVA Overlook Gallery (Brighton, MA) and VanDernoot Gallery (Cambridge, MA). His photographs are published in the Spring Issue of Slidelines Magazine in 2024 and Vogue Italian website from 2020 to 2024. Zou received Anderson Ranch Art Center Scholarship in 2024. He is the honorable mention winner of the 2024 Lenscratch Student Prize. He has taught in the photography department of MassArt in 2024 and 2025.
