Han Shen

Shen Han (b. 1988) is an artist from Hangzhou, Zhejiang. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Berlin University of the Arts in 2017. and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Shen Han's artwork is filled with elements that are sometimes hidden, sometimes revealed, and often misinterpreted. These elements blend and dissolve on the canvas, gradually forming clear contours only when observed as a whole. He constructs color blocks with oil paint, imbuing lines with a sense of rhythm and depicting concealed spaces. This interplay creates a dynamic, non-continuous landscape. His work marks a continuous exploration of the boundaries between non-representational and abstract painting. Shen Han's abstract painting language is characterized by its open-ended nature, inviting viewers to complete the interpretation themselves. The unfinished parts become fragments of clues for exploring possibilities. In this unordered landscape, viewers and the artist conspire, imagine, and compromise to achieve completeness. This unresolved state initiates an infinite prelude, exploring the relationship between painting and the subconscious.

Shen Han excels at creating large-scale paintings, while also frequently producing smaller works. These smaller pieces allow him to quickly realize his ideas and emotions and inspire further creativity. He deftly employs lines, color fields, and oil paint on canvas. Oil painting is crucial to his creative process due to its slow-drying nature, which suits his artistic rhythm. During the creation process, he becomes wholly immersed in painting, sometimes feeling controlled by it, and finds it difficult to determine when a piece is finished. 

When you start to recognize some representational elements, they are often covered by new layers of paint the next moment. The canvas is covered, not erased, which is significant because Shen Han's paintings are closely tied to memory. They are not true continuous narratives but layered stories. Certain images and ideas appear fleetingly, guiding viewers into the painting, only to vanish again, leaving only traces behind. These "traces" are not identifiable objects or figures but the essence of Shen Han's imagery. In the end, people find the canvas "complete" and "whole" without knowing exactly why. This also means that Shen Han is playing a small game with inspiration, like molding clay and then painting it, often breaking and restarting. This is what makes Shen Han's work so captivating—its infinite imaginative space and its resistance to fixed definitions. His paintings are poetic, like hazy landscapes that emerge in the mind, leaving viewers amazed and profoundly moved.

Shen Han's works are widely collected in renowned international museums and private collections and have achieved significant recognition and success in the international art market. His exhibitions include Galerie Anette Muller in Düsseldorf, Colonia Nova in Berlin, Villa Renata in Basel, Paris Asia Now in 2022, Tang Contemporary Art Center in Bangkok, Wuhan Art Museum, He Xiangning Art Museum, and Aurora Museum in Shanghai. In 2023, Shen Han was selected by Artsy, the world's largest art website, as one of the five most promising emerging abstract painters of the year (New Abstract 2023). As a key figure in contemporary abstract painting, Shen Han continues to influence and drive discussions in the global abstract art community with his unique visual language and profound thematic explorations.