Han Lei
Beijing-based artist Han Lei is credited as a pioneer of Chinese photography following the Cultural Revolution. During the late 1980s, Han documented village life in his hometown of Kaifeng, Henan, and, since then, he has developed an expansive and complex artistic practice working across media including sculpture, installation, and painting. Nonetheless, Han remains a photographer first, and is noted for the elaborate pageantry and low-saturation of his images.
Han is particularly interested in exploring contemporary notions of beauty, literary figures, and traditional Chinese arts. The models who appear in his work typically possess certain unique qualities and are not conventional beauties. Corpulent women, for instance, are precisely posed, so as to evoke historical Western works of art or to enact familiar Chinese narratives. These striking images upend engrained perceptions of beauty, as they emphasize the inner states and emotional depth of these models, in addition to their enchanting outward distinctiveness. Employing similar tactics, Han has also produced a well-known body of work in which circular landscape photographs recall traditional Chinese paintings and are infused with nostalgia and timelessness.
Han’s work has been exhibited at the Kwangju Museum of Art, the Guangzhou Museum of Art, the Gwangju Museum of Art, the Guangzhou …
Beijing-based artist Han Lei is credited as a pioneer of Chinese photography following the Cultural Revolution. During the late 1980s, Han documented village life in his hometown of Kaifeng, Henan, and, since then, he has developed an expansive and complex artistic practice working across media including sculpture, installation, and painting. Nonetheless, Han remains a photographer first, and is noted for the elaborate pageantry and low-saturation of his images.
Han is particularly interested in exploring contemporary notions of beauty, literary figures, and traditional Chinese arts. The models who appear in his work typically possess certain unique qualities and are not conventional beauties. Corpulent women, for instance, are precisely posed, so as to evoke historical Western works of art or to enact familiar Chinese narratives. These striking images upend engrained perceptions of beauty, as they emphasize the inner states and emotional depth of these models, in addition to their enchanting outward distinctiveness. Employing similar tactics, Han has also produced a well-known body of work in which circular landscape photographs recall traditional Chinese paintings and are infused with nostalgia and timelessness.
Han’s work has been exhibited at the Kwangju Museum of Art, the Guangzhou Museum of Art, the Gwangju Museum of Art, the Guangzhou Photography Biennial, and the Prague International Museum, among others places.
