Meet Mrs. Chen and Mr. Zhang, our working artists.

Two new names are on the art schedule at our center. Mrs. Chen and Mr. Zhang are working artists who make and show their work in New York. They teach at 374 Millburn Avenue, and they co-teach.

Both were in Mystry Mart at Design Miami in 2025 and in the SPRING/BREAK Art Show in 2025. In 2024 both took part in the Mystry Mart blind box program for the Brooklyn Museum's 200th anniversary, and both were in Till Echoes Can Be Heard at High Line Nine Galleries.

Mrs. Chen

Mrs. Chen is a painter and public artist. She trained formally in oil painting and has made art for more than 20 years. She worked in Beijing from 2006 and has lived in New York since 2022. Her work moves between painting, video and public art.

In New York she has had two solo shows: Hi, Strangers at Sojourner Gallery in 2023, supported by LMCC, and Calm Before the Storm at Gallery 456 in 2024. She has also received New York State Council on the Arts grants (2023, 2025) and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council artist grants. Both are highly competitive.

Her public work A Vision of the World, made with Mr. Zhang, is a 3-meter steel eye on Long Island. It is placed so the sun fills the pupil at sunrise and sunset.

At our center, Mrs. Chen teaches Fine Arts: Art, Scholastic Arts, and Adult Art Class, for Grades 4-8 and adults.

Mr. Zhang

Mr. Zhang was born in Guilin in 1975. He earned a BA from the art department of Guangxi Normal University and did postgraduate printmaking studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). He is an artist and writer who lives in New York and Beijing.

His US solo shows include Unseen Window at 456 Gallery in Manhattan (2024) and Here and There at Times Art Gallery in Manhattan (2023). He has exhibited in 9 countries, including Germany, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Korea, Italy and the UK. His large work The Red Sea is in the permanent collection of COFCO Landmark Plaza in Beijing, where it stands in the building's atrium. He has also been invited to lecture and teach at CAFA, Peking University and Colorado State University.

The Red Sea is his best-known installation. He built the first version from the bricks of artist studios torn down in Heiqiao, an artists' village near Beijing's 798 Art District, hanging red bricks, tiles, even spoons and coins from the rubble on fishing line to form a breaking wave. In 2018 it was the only work in the opening show of A Museum, a public art project later joined by works from Xu Bing and Sui Jianguo. For the second version he gathered 100,000 bricks from the ruins of the Sanli Building beside Beijing's Temple of Earth and hung them on 3,105 steel cables. The 8-ton wave now hangs in the atrium of COFCO Landmark Plaza, built on that same site, as part of its permanent collection.

After settling in New York in 2022, Mr. Zhang began painting on used MetroCards. He has made nearly a hundred of them, small visual diaries of the city painted over the card's own yellow and blue. He calls the series Here and There.

At our center, Mr. Zhang teaches Fine Arts: Creative Art, Fine Arts Studio, and Scholastic Arts, for Pre-K to Grade 10. See Mr. Zhang's teacher profile.

What it means for a child at our center

Children here learn from artists who are still making and showing work. Between them, Mrs. Chen and Mr. Zhang cover Pre-K to Grade 10, and Mrs. Chen's classes also include adults.

Mr. Zhang's classes are built on real materials, real technique, and room to develop the child's own voice.

That is Mrs. Chen's advice to young artists. It is short, and we like it.

中文简介

陈老师和张老师都是在纽约创作和展出作品的艺术家，现在在 Beyond Young Academy 的 374 Millburn Avenue 一起教美术。陈老师教 Art、Scholastic Arts 和 Adult Art Class，面向 Grades 4-8 和成人。张老师教 Creative Art、Fine Arts Studio 和 Scholastic Arts，面向 Pre-K 到 Grade 10。两位老师的作品都曾在 2025 年的 Design Miami 和 SPRING/BREAK Art Show 展出。陈老师两度获得纽约州艺术基金（2023、2025），并获曼哈顿下城文化委员会（LMCC）艺术创作基金，这两项基金每年竞争都十分激烈；她在纽约举办过两次个展。张老师曾受邀在中央美术学院、北京大学和美国科罗拉多州立大学讲学与授课，自 2010 年起举办个展 16 次，作品展出于布鲁克林美术馆、迈阿密设计博览会、日本越后妻有大地艺术祭、米兰贝纳通收藏展、伦敦 OXO 画廊等，遍及 9 个国家；大型作品《The Red Sea》被北京中粮置地广场永久收藏，陈列于大楼中庭。欢迎来试听，试听课 $35，报名后可抵扣第一个月的学费。