# Per Apera Ad Astra

A girl with large, pale eyes stands against a cool blue sky, white feathered wings folded behind her - an angel who does not look comforted by her own wings. A small crescent moon is marked on her upper arm. The Latin title - "through hardship to the stars" - gives the image its emotional register: this is not triumph but endurance, something still in the process of becoming. Zhu's figurative work consistently explores the interior lives of children and young women, finding in stillness a form of psychological depth. She works in oil with a traditional multi-layered glazing technique rooted in Renaissance and French academic painting, and began painting professionally in 2019.

[Browse all works by Wenyi Zhu](/collections/wenyi-zhu)

## Details

- **Price:** 2800.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Art Scout
- **Type:** Original Painting
- **Tags:** buy original art online, collector art, figurative painting, glazing technique, oil painting, original painting, portrait, wall art, Wenyi Zhu

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 2800.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Per Aspera Ad Astra – oil painting by Zhu of girl with large pale eyes and white feathered wings against cool blue sky, crescent moon on arm, endurance rather than triumph in through-hardship-to-the-stars composition
- Per Aspera Ad Astra by Zhu – detail of pale eyes and white wings against cool blue sky with crescent moon mark on arm
- Per Aspera Ad Astra by Zhu – full canvas of angel-child portrait in blue sky with cool luminous oil glazing and something still becoming
- Per Aspera Ad Astra by Zhu – close-up of cool luminous skin and sky in traditional multi-layered oil glazing from self-taught painter
- Per Aspera Ad Astra by Zhu – painting in room context
- Per Apera Ad Astra
- Per Apera Ad Astra
- Per Apera Ad Astra
- Per Apera Ad Astra

## Additional Information

- **Dimensions:** 20"×20"
- **Artist Material:** Oil on canvas
- **Artist Name:** Wenyi Zhu
- **About The Artist Link:** https://www.artscout.pro/collections/wenyi-zhu

### About The Artist Content

Wenyi Zhu (b. 1981, Suzhou, China) is a figurative painter based in College Station, Texas, whose work explores the human figure as both a physical and psychological presence. She came of age in Suzhou, a city famous for its classical gardens, and was introduced to image-making by her grandfather, a Chinese calligrapher. A prolonged childhood illness deepened that early practice, turning drawing into a sustained interior discipline that still shapes her work today.

Before devoting herself fully to painting, Zhu earned a PhD in environmental science from Rutgers University, a background whose analytical rigor surfaces in the careful structure and patience behind each composition. She works in oil using a traditional multi-layered technique rooted in Renaissance and French academic painting, building each canvas from a grisaille underpainting through successive transparent glazes, a process that produces the soft, luminous quality her figures are known for.

Her paintings frequently depict women and children in quiet, self-contained moments, unhurried scenes that seem to exist just outside the reach of narrative. Informed by Raphael, Botticelli, and Bouguereau in their idealized tenderness, and by Magritte in their subtle psychological distance, Zhu's work returns persistently to the same preoccupations: fragility, stillness, and the faint but unmistakable presence of an interior life.

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> Source: [Art Scout](https://www.artscout.pro/products/per-aspera-ad-astra-zhu)
> Updated: 2026-08-28