Auckland artist Hazel Zishun is redefining makeup

Hazel Zishun 榛子瞬 is a makeup designer, artist, artistic and director from Tāmaki Makaurau. Zishun sat down with Naomii Seah to debate their artistic journey. 
Watching Hazel Zishun 榛子瞬 work is visible meditation. In the little squares of my Instagram homepage, Zishun pops up every now and then, taking part in the guzheng, swooping a paintbrush with a preternaturally regular hand over cheeks, or digitally modifying their intricate “paints”. Their actions are calm and swish, however the finish end result is managed chaos, which Zishun describes as “an Aries factor”. 
The approach Zishun utilises makeup is like nothing you’ve ever seen earlier than. Delicate swirls twist themselves chaotically over cheekbones. Though at first look the location appears haphazard, on re-examination it turns into evident that even the smallest fleck is completed with intention. Unexpected color palettes are blended, smudged and blown-out to perfection, criss-crossed with daring strains and summary particulars that encourage double-takes, then triple-takes, then quadruple-takes. Because each look reveals contemporary element. Zishun’s makeup isn’t simply artwork, it’s a visible feast. 

Zishun is a part of Āhua collective, which centres Takatāpui, queer, and BIPOC artists right here in Aotearoa. In their newest exhibition, Zishun featured their photograph sequence “如梦初醒Now you see me” and the work “回家coming dwelling”, painted with makeup, alongside different artists within the collective like Sara Moana, Marc Conaco and Sonya Milford. 
I went alongside to the opening evening of the exhibition and shortly noticed Zishun, rocking a brightly patterned head-scarf, a daring inexperienced button down and equally daring eye-makeup in saturated pink, purple, inexperienced and yellow. There’s no denying it – Zishun has an inventive expression that’s simply plain cool, and unapologetically singular.

Some weeks later, we Zoomed in to have a chat about all issues makeup, and Zishun appeared fresh-faced on their sofa, an cute cat plushie perched behind them. They apologise about cancelling our in-person bubble tea appointment: “I’m menstruating for the time being,” they confide with an eye-roll, a hand on their abdomen.
Though nonetheless in younger maturity, Zishun has already lived many lives. Zishun started finding out as a trainer in 2012, working from 2015-2017 as a trainer and a someday kids’s face-painter. Then, feeling “drawn to the [film] business”, Zishun stop instructing in 2017 to check prosthetics and particular results makeup at Gorton Studio within the UK. When they got here dwelling to Tāmaki, they continued finding out makeup artistry for vogue, movie and TV at The Makeup School in Ponsonby. 
“I have a look at my profession and what I’ve constructed up to now fondly and with gratitude and love,” says Zishun. And so they need to; they’ve achieved lots of their time, directing their very own brief movie based mostly on the photograph sequence “如梦初醒Now you see me” and dealing on the Amazon manufacturing of The Lord of the Rings. But Zishun is fast to redirect the highlight onto these round them, gushing their appreciation for the individuals who’ve impacted their profession. Creative initiatives – particularly within the movie and vogue business – usually contain big groups, and Zishun is fast to thank theirs, together with Karen Ishiguro and the artistic staff for “如梦初醒Now you see me”, Griff Jones, who directed a the current brief movie venture Zishun labored on, and Laura Stables. 

Zishun’s influences lengthen into their wider lives too; they describe their dad and mom, their household and “particularly my laolao” as “my soulmates”. There’s a light-weight in Zishun’s eyes after they discuss “the enjoyment I really feel connecting with skills and creatives I get to satisfy in my profession, and as I realise simply how a lot human connections imply for me as I broaden my soul and consciousness on this earth”. Zishun describes their present work as “therapeutic my previous selves.” 
It’s been a protracted journey to get to Zishun’s present stage of experience and confidence. A couple of years in the past, Zishun lived in a small, extraordinarily scorching house in Auckland’s internal metropolis. It was so scorching, Zishun would wait till the early night earlier than attending to work, digital camera on a tripod earlier than them, and their backdrop pressed to their again. Makeup brushes and physique paint can be laid out, and with deft precision, Zishun would start tracing landscapes throughout their chest. “I really like Bob Ross,” gushes Zishun. And that’s what they’d paint evening after evening, day after day. Body paint which took hours to do, however shortly constructed Zishun’s talent. They’d do some fast face makeup after the physique paint, take photographs, after which head off to the lavatory. Two pumps of body-wash would go on – dry – over Zishun’s onerous work, smearing the ridges of mountain peaks, waterfalls and forest scenes. A baby-wipe later, and Zishun can be onto their subsequent Bob Ross masterpiece. And so it went, two paints an evening for weeks on finish. “It requires ardour, you really want to need to do it,” Zishun mentioned, including with a chuckle that they didn’t assume they may try this now. 

But although Zishun is developing shortly within the business with their apparent expertise, they arrive from humble beginnings. Zishun notes they “by no means did makeup” in China, the place they lived earlier than immigrating to New Zealand to check. “Creativity, and having the ability to categorical your self creatively, is a factor of privilege,” says Zishun, “and as a first-gen teen immigrant, I needed to prioritise the immigration journey, which concerned discovering a ‘actual job’.” Additionally, creative and private expression weren’t traits that have been inspired throughout her upbringing. Like many others, she had grown up with the mantra of “don’t stand out an excessive amount of”. At the time, she felt her price was related together with her productiveness. 
So they didn’t be taught makeup “from my mum or something,” Zishun says with a wry smile. Instead, their introduction to makeup got here at college. A pal requested them in the event that they knew a BB cream from Missha, a Korean makeup model. Zishun’s response: “what the fuck is a BB cream?” But the true turning level was a pal who confirmed Zishun their very own makeup creations. 
“It was like gem stones on the face – very 2010. I simply bear in mind feeling like, you realize what, I can in all probability try this,” ays Zishun. “I by no means thought to myself I might do something creatively [before that], as a result of I’ve at all times been informed that this is a passion.” 

When they began their makeup journey in 2016, Zishun mentioned “I used to be misplaced,” as a result of they wished to be another person. Like most individuals, Zishun struggled with magnificence beliefs. It traces again to white supremacy, notes Zishun, who mentioned they’d a variety of internalised whiteness inside them throughout the 2010s. They have been satisfied of a necessity to suit “the usual”, they usually knew early on that customary wasn’t the face trying again within the mirror. 
As a toddler, they’d a e book on the golden ratio, measured to a blonde girl’s face. Zishun acquired a ruler, excited to measure their very own options compared. Zishun’s enthusiasm was shortly deflated. “That was the second I knew I wasn’t stunning,” says Zishun. “You know Inside Out? The core recollections – that was a core reminiscence, however a nasty one,” they giggle. 
In 2016, after they started their Instagram, Zishun describes themselves as a really completely different individual. “I used to be fairly misplaced,” they mentioned. Zishun laughed that I wouldn’t recognise them, telling me they used to put on a full face of makeup, with spider-lashes virtually day by day. I think about the block brows and cut-creases of the 2010s – a world away from Zishun’s present type. Back then, they have been fixated on altering their face, and described feeling as if makeup was promising them a “approach out”. It took Zishun some time to seek out their id, saying at one time they recognized with Shaanxo – who is the identical age as them – so strongly that they’d “xo” of their identify. 
Back in 2016, Zishun was additionally very important of their very own work. They bear in mind “considering – so harshly – why is my face like that? It was at all times the face; the physique paint was flawless”. They attribute it once more to that sense of self-consciousness. “Confidence takes observe,” Zishun says knowingly. 

But the best way during which Zishun makes use of makeup has since modified dramatically. “When I paint myself to be all loopy and chaotic, I really feel prefer it’s a approach to have fun my face.” Now, Zishun goes by “Hazelpaints” as an ode to the start of their profession – kids’s face portray. It’s additionally a reference to their coaching as a particular results makeup artist, and naturally, Bob Ross. 
From 2019, they began to create “actually intricate makeup that was like nothing I’ve completed earlier than. I felt they have been all simply authentic… I’d be impressed by a rock, or the sky, or my curtain and the best way the sunshine falls on the ground. It turned designing, and I didn’t know that on the time”. 
And this new mode of designing and taking part in has given Zishun new confidence. “I can inform it’s actually good, from the best way all of it comes collectively; it’s very mature and the strains circulation simply. I’m admiring eight years of my life going into this craft. It’s my ninth 12 months. I’m identical to: fuck, I really like myself this is nice”.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/28-02-2022/auckland-artist-hazel-zishun-is-redefining-makeup