Kelly Zou is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Edinburgh. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2021 and is an alumna of the Royal Drawing School. Her practice is rooted in drawing and painting, integrating historical research, personal memory, and cross-cultural narratives to explore emotional landscapes of place and belonging.

 

Born in China, she worked as a programmer before relocating to Scotland. Her work reflects themes of displacement, memory, and nostalgia, exploring the relationship between inner experience and the external world. Working across drawing, painting, and writing, her pieces develop through an intuitive process shaped by movement, memory, and emotion. She often works with layered surfaces and scroll-based forms, reflecting the accumulation and fragmentation of lived experience.

​

Kelly has undertaken artist residencies at Dumfries House (Royal Drawing School), Leith School of Art, and the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Upcoming residencies include projects with The City Art Centre, Edinburgh, and Studio Soma × Sail Britain.

​

Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Royal Scottish Academy, RBSA Gallery, Forfar Meffan Museum & Art Gallery, and the Hou Beiren Art Museum.

​

She is a recipient of the City of Edinburgh Council’s Diversity and Inclusion Fund Bursary Award, in partnership with the City Art Centre, as well as the Freelands Foundation Artist Bursary, the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust Travel Grant, and the Visual Artist and Craft Maker Award (VACMA).

 

Alongside her studio practice, she is committed to community engagement and education. She is a mentor at Creative Edinburgh, a tutor at Edinburgh Drawing School, and leads community art sessions with Parkinson’s UK Edinburgh Branch.

​