Short biography (EN / FR)
Avery Zhao-Djokic is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work explores the intersection of painting, sculpture, and live performance. Her practice often emerges from chaos and circumstance, eventually guided toward a resolved visual form. With a background in fashion design from ESMOD Paris and early professional experience in the European and Quebec fashion industry, Avery brings a deep sensitivity to pattern, rhythm, and gesture into her visual art.
Since 2013, Avery has developed a unique practice of live painting in dialogue with music and dance, a form she describes as “the painter as scribe”—creating immediate, reactive, and commemorative visual narratives during performances. These works have been presented in numerous concert halls and festivals, broadcast by CBC/Radio-Canada, and featured in exhibitions. Her 2017 Banff Centre residency, supported by scholarship, allowed her to expand this work through a series of custom tools and painted scores. That same body of work, The Painter as Scribe, continues to unfold through Avery’s ongoing research and creative output, resurfacing in new forms across both performance and studio contexts.
Avery is the founder and Artistic Director of Ensembl’arts Group (originally Art Crush), a nonprofit multidisciplinary ensemble that presents innovative visual and performing arts collaborations across Canada. She also teaches visual arts at CAMMAC Music Centre and frequently collaborates with musicians and dancers in both performative and research contexts.
In addition to her artistic practice, Avery is active in arts advocacy. She has served on the executive board of directors of RAAV (Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec) since 2017, marking eight years of active involvement. As co-president of COVA-DAAV (Copyright Visual Arts) Avery helped the society acquire the visual arts and crafts licensing and copyright business from SOCAN in 2022, a historic transfer for COVA-DAAV. She was also invited to speak on the panel Her Story: Professional Women in Montreal’s Art Scene in 2018.
Born in Beijing, raised in Ottawa and educated in Toronto and Paris, Avery’s cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach reflects a career shaped by international experience, community engagement, and a deep curiosity about the visual language of performance.
(FR)
Avery Zhao-Djokic est une artiste visuelle multidisciplinaire dont le travail explore l’intersection entre la peinture, la sculpture et la performance en direct. Sa pratique naît souvent du chaos et des circonstances, avant d’être menée vers une forme visuelle aboutie. Formée en design de mode à ESMOD Paris et forte d’une expérience professionnelle dans l’industrie de la mode en Europe et au Québec, Avery transpose une grande sensibilité aux motifs, au rythme et au geste dans ses œuvres visuelles.
Depuis 2013, Avery développe une pratique singulière de peinture en direct en dialogue avec la musique et la danse. Elle qualifie cette approche de « peintre-scribe », créant ainsi des récits visuels immédiats, réactifs et commémoratifs lors des performances. Ses œuvres ont été présentées dans de nombreuses salles de concert et festivals, diffusées par CBC/Radio-Canada, et exposées dans divers contextes. Lors d’une résidence au Banff Centre en 2017, soutenue par une bourse, elle a approfondi cette recherche à travers la création d’outils sur mesure et de partitions peintes. Cette même démarche, The Painter as Scribe, continue d’évoluer à travers ses recherches et productions artistiques, se manifestant sous de nouvelles formes en studio comme en performance.
Avery est fondatrice et directrice artistique du Groupe Ensembl’arts (anciennement Art Crush), un ensemble multidisciplinaire à but non lucratif qui présente des collaborations novatrices entre arts visuels et arts de la scène à travers le Canada. Elle enseigne également les arts visuels au Centre musical CAMMAC et collabore régulièrement avec des musiciens et danseurs dans des contextes performatifs et de recherche.
En parallèle de sa pratique artistique, Avery s’engage activement dans la défense des droits d’artistes. Elle siège au conseil d’administration exécutif du RAAV (Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec) depuis 2017, marquant huit années d’implication soutenue. En tant que coprésidente de COVA-DAAV (Droits d’auteur arts visuels), elle a contribué en 2022 à l’acquisition historique du service de gestion des droits en arts visuels et métiers d’art précédemment détenu par la SOCAN. Elle a également été invitée en 2018 à participer au panel Her Story: Professional Women in Montreal’s Art Scene.
Née à Beijing, élevée à Ottawa et formée à Toronto et Paris, Avery adopte une approche interculturelle et interdisciplinaire qui reflète une carrière façonnée par l’expérience internationale, l’engagement communautaire et une profonde curiosité pour le langage visuel de la performance.
Early biography
Avery was born in Beijing, China, and at the age of five her family moved to Ottawa, Ontario. She has studied Design at Ryerson University and from 2005 to 2008 she studied at the Grande Ecole ESMOD in Paris, France, where she graduated with honours in Fashion Design. For several years following she worked as a fashion designer in Paris and Montreal for major international brands, her work leading her to research trips around Europe, Asia and the USA.
After leaving the fashion industry to pursue a second degree in Fine Arts, she has been working part time at the Institute for Urban Futures, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University. Avery was a coordinator for FASA from 2015-2017 and is a board member for RAAV, the Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec. Since 2016 Avery has also been working on R & D within the Topological Media Lab for the Solar Decathlon Competition (project TEAM MTL), a joint collaboration between McGill University and Concordia University.
In 2013 Avery founded the on-going multidisciplinary project Art Crush with violinist Marc Djokic. Inspired by the patterns, constraints, notation and arrangement systems of the music and dance disciplines, she explores these in her own practice of live painting alongside music and dance performances. During these performances she views her role as ‘the painter as scribe’, engaged in reactionary painting. In 2016 she completed a two-week residency, ‘Tactile Museum’, at the Montreal artist centre Eastern Bloc in collaboration with a dance choreographer where movements affected a hanging network of lines in space. In 2017 Art Crush performed at the Salle Bourgie in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in collaboration with innovative Baroque group Ensemble Caprice. The foundation Mécénat Musica noncerto has produced several videos for Art Crush, filmed in Montreal and Fredericton, NB. In early 2018 Avery co-curated an Art Matters exhibit at the Articule gallery around this theme of multidisciplinary performance, ‘Art Crush in Time’.
During a month-long residency at the Banff Centre Avery continued her research on the Art Crush project, creating dozens of live-painted artworks and a set of specialized painting tools. This work, entitled ‘The Painter as Scribe’, was exhibited at the VAV Gallery in Fall 2017.
Avery recently premiered a 25 minute live-painting video commission by pianist David Jalbert, to visualize his recording of Phrygian Gates by composer John Adams.
In April 2022 Avery will be presenting a live-painting performance in collaboration with a musician and a dancer, a multidisciplinary show presented by the Ottawa New Music Creators at the Ottawa Art Gallery.