Biography
Miner Zhu is an independent visual artist working with animation, drawing, and filming. Her animation films explore both the traditional medium of animation and new media art. She is born in China, and she is taking her BFA of Experimental Animation at OCAD University in Toronto. Her animation practices work with a variety of forms, mediums and techniques. She expresses her feelings, describes her observations of the world and society through her works. She is planning on her future studies of master program, and continues her research on experimental animation working with installation.
Artist Statement
I’m an animator. I’m in 4th year of experimental animation now. Most of my works are 2d, and I’m familiar with traditional frame-by-frame animation.
I’ve done animation on paper, digitally, and animation combined with live action and so on.
I’m focusing on experimental animation now, but I also did learn lots about character animation, so I did many character designs and storyboarding through my practices.
I work with many media software, because software is necessary for animating, and there’s always new technology coming out, so I feel like learning software is also a part of my work.
I’ve done a few projects by myself, in the past two years. For me, making an animation is long-term work, and it’s also heavy especially when I want to make it great. But I’m still really enjoying making a short clip on my own, I’m the one who comes up with the story, writes the script, and designs all the stuff; I draw the storyboards, I make the film, and I do the editing.
There’s a lot of work, but it’s exciting to improve those individual skills gradually and then put them back together, and I can see the development of it.
I like to work with the theme of emotions and people’s feelings. I often grab that inspiration from my life experiences. I made works about the feeling of isolation due to the coronavirus, and what people feel when they are over breathing under depression.
I also like doing research before I start to make the animation, some of my practices are about particular social phenomenons. I could actually learn from the research, so making this kind of work is also a way of thinking.
I found it interesting to try different materials, so I also want to explore the medium in my future practices. And maybe explore different ways to display as well, like combining with installation and stop motion.
Contact Me
minerzhu0806@gmail.com
(437) 972-2256
25 Greenview Ave, North York