03/31/2026
🐯💙 Alumni Spotlight: Milan Zou '16 🎨
Exploring discipline, deconstruction, and the space in between..
💙Q1: When did you realize you wanted to pursue art?
Milan: It wasn’t one moment, but a gradual realization. At Lausanne, I spent hours after school painting in Ms. Manzo’s atelier, fully immersed. Later, while working in fashion after Parsons, I realized I couldn’t access that same focus. That absence made things clear; painting was the only way I felt fully aligned. I returned to it as my career.
💙Q2: How would you describe your work?
Milan: Discipline and deconstruction. My work explores how structures, garments, systems, and expectations shape the body and mind. Through painting, I gradually strip away identity and narrative, creating space between what defines us and what exists beyond it.
💙Q3: What do you hope viewers take away?
Milan: A quiet sense of disruption, where something once fixed begins to loosen. I want viewers to question identity and how much of the “self” is shaped by external structures.
💙Q4: What is your creative process?
Milan: I start with a question, like research. I often begin with fashion sketching, then build the painting slowly in layers until it moves beyond description into something more open and unresolved.
💙Q5: Advice for students pursuing creative careers?
Milan: Passion is essential. Art is about creating, not solving. External validation won’t sustain you; what matters is whether you can return to something internal again and again. If that’s clear, continuing becomes necessary.
This is just a glimpse into Milan’s work and perspective. We wish we had room for the full interview. Everyone at Lausanne is so proud of Milan ’16 and all that she has accomplished. We are continually inspired by her work and would love to welcome her back to campus to share her journey with our Upper School arts students. 💙
