Sally J. Han
(b.1993) in Shenyang, China
Lives and works in New York City
There is a sly politics to Sally J. Han’s paintings. As 'A Painter of Modern Life', she seduces the eye and the mind with her pictorial narratives…careful to embed details that hint at her identity as a Korean and Chinese American. Twentieth century American art has not always told stories that reflect Asian American realities. Han’s work beguiles us with quiet yet powerful scenes of her lived experience. A game of Mahjong while savoring a cigarette. A studious girl pouring over her homework. A piano lesson. Smartphones are the only clue that these scenes are unfolding in the present tense. Her techniques hark back to the century’s old alchemy of painterly expression, while creating scenes of everyday life that are simultaneously very contemporary and yet utterly timeless. - Alison Gingeras
EDUCATION
2019: Master of Fine Arts, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
2016: Bachelor of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
SOLO Exhibitions
2023: Gallery Belenius, Stockholm, Sweden
2022: Lost and Found, Fortnight Institute, NYC
2021: Solo Presentation at Independent Art Fair, NYC
2020: Foreplay at Fortnight Institute, NYC
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIOns
2023: Pictures Girls Make: Portraiture Through the Lens of Progress, curated by Alison Gingeras, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, C A.
2023: In New York, Thinking of You , FLAG Art Foundation, New York
2023: You Were Bigger than the Sky, You Were More than Just a Short Time, Gallery Belenius, Stockholm, Sweden
2023: Interior Chinatown, Eastern Connecticut State University Art Gallery, Willimantic, CT
2022: The Power to Dream, Hussenot Gallery, Paris, France
2022: Dark Light, Realism in the Age of Post truth, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon
2022: Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, LA
2022:Taxonomies of Imagination, Curated by Andrew Sendor, Make Room, LA
2022: Pictus Porrectus: Reconsidering the Full Length Portrait, curated by Alison M. Gingeras and Dodie Kazanjian, Art & Newport Foundation, Newport, Rhode Island
2022: Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, NYC
2021: Nine Lives, Fortnight Institute, New York, NY
2021: and I will wear you in my heart of heart, the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY
2021: The Lonely Ones, curated by Katelyn Eichwald, Fortnight Institute, NY
2021: Hunters in the Snow, curated by Fortnight Institute, 303 Gallery, NY
2019: Spaced Out , Two-person exhibition with Henry Chang, YUI Gallery, curated by Qiaoyi Shi, NYC
2019: Take Home A Nude 2019, Sotheby's, Manhattan, New York
2019: New York Academy of Art Alumni: Summer Exhibition Online Exhibition, curated by Mariano Cinat, Organized by SHIM Art Network
2019: MFA Thesis Exhibition, Wilkinson Gallery, NY, NY
2019: Tribeca Ball 2019, New York Academy of Art, NY, NY
2018: New York Academy Annual Summer Exhibition, curated by Brent Beamon, Nicole Berry Matthew Flowers, Alice Gray Stites, Ambre Kelly and Richard Vine, Flowers Gallery, New York, NY
2018: Fun House, curated by Danijela Purssey & Istvan Banyai, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
The Aïshti Foundation, Lebanon
PRIZES, AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS
2019: Gamblin Paint Award
2019: Patricia & Scott Moger Research Grant
2019: Nomination to the Chubb Fellowship Award
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2024: Forthcoming Artist's Book, Lost & Found, Published by Fortnight Institute
-
When C-print met Sally
Koshik Zaman, C-Print -
Long Live Life’s Little Moments
John Yau, Hyperallergic, October 26, 2022 -
An Enthralling Exhibition in Newport Puts the Full-Length Portrait in Focus
Marley Marius, Vogue, July 15, 2022 -
Sally J. Han NYT | In Newport, Artists Turn Tables on the Gilded Age
Meredith Mendelsohn, New York Times, July 6, 2022 -
THIS SUMMER, NEW YORK ART IS MAGIC, MYSTIC AND UNCANNY
Annie Armstrong, Cultured, August 12, 2021 -
Nine Lives
Johanna Fateman, The New Yorker, August 9, 2021 -
Sally J. Han, Hummingbirds can fly backwards. Can you?
Joshen Mantai, FLAUNT, April 14, 2021 -
Sally J. Han Steeps Her Work in Culture for All
Emma Grayson, June 26, 2020 -
Sally J. Han: Foreplay
Everett Narciso, The Brooklyn Rail, February 23, 2020
-
Sally J. Han
Lost and Found 13 Oct - 13 Nov 2022A lipstick-stained napkin, a copy of K ō b ō Abe’s 1964 novel The Face of Another, a grocery list, tootsie rolls, and a delicately salt-rimmed margarita—these seemingly disparate objects...Read more -
Nine Lives
22 Jul - 21 Aug 2021Nine Lives is a group exhibition that looks to examine the perennial motif of cats within art. Across generations and cultures, felines have been used as a vehicle for symbolism,...Read more -
The Lonely Ones
Curated by Katelyn Eichwald 15 Feb - 30 Mar 2021The lonely ones, the broken-hearted, the estranged, the ones whose mothers loved them wrong, the ones whose fathers loved them weak, the ones whose sisters and brothers died young, whose...Read more -
Hunters in the Snow
Curated by Fortnight Institute at 303 Gallery, NYC 6 Feb - 7 Mar 2021Pieter Bruegel’s Series of the Month depicts January as a solemn time, one in which the struggle for survival is most acute. The month is captured in his painting, Hunters...Read more -
SALLY J. HAN
Foreplay 30 Jan - 28 Feb 2020Sally J. Han's acrylic paintings on paper, mounted on panel, are confessions but also secrets. The answer to what they might reveal or conceal rests in a space between the...Read more