The work of Korean-American artist Debbie Han is characterised by the dual forces of painstaking, diverse craftsmanship and artwork which demands attention, or causes shock. These tactics are combined to address questions of identity and larger social patterns, for central to Han’s work is an enduring interest in how human experience is shaped and conditioned by contemporary culture. In her practice, Han navigates the boundaries of photography and sculpture and has worked in materials as diverse as marble, celadon, inlaid lacquer and digitally manipulated photography.
In 2009 Han won the Sovereign Asian Art Award for Seated Three Graces, a work in her acclaimed Graces series which combine the typical body of a Korean woman with the face of an idealised Greek sculpture. Subverting the practice of figurative sculpture and portrait photography, Han navigates the boundaries between illusion and reality and between western standards of ideal beauty and the reality of contemporary Korean women. In a country where 60% of women have undergone plastic surgery to have their faces ‘corrected’ to meet a Eurocentric notion of ideal beauty, Han opens up a debate about the beauty myths that pervade eastern and western cultures.
In other works Han tackles the perversity of ideal beauty outside of Asia and considers the position of women globally. Terms of Beauty (2004-2007) is a sculptural series in which the artist appends physical facial features of various cultures on to classical Venus heads. The heads feature prominent additions which vary from ‘Jewish’ noses to African lips and oriental eyes. In 2008 the artist created another departure for her work by beginning to work in Korean lacquer on wood inlaid with mother of pearl, a technique which entails over 20 laborious processes. Employing a medium which dates back thousands of years, Han’s challenge was to incorporate Korean inlaid lacquer into the contemporary arena, not only lending it a new relevance but having it underscore her subject matter. By incorporating additions such as the stitching of a football on the busts, Han pushes Venus into the arena of sports, making explicit reference to the notion of ideal beauty as a new form of sports entertainment.
Born in Korea, Han emigrated to the U.S. with her family as a child and completed her art major at the University of California and her MA at the Pratt Institute in New York. Having begun her career in the U.S., she returned to Korea in 2003 for an artist residency programme. Han has had several solo shows throughout the U.S., Europe and in Korea and has enjoyed a strong presence in both American and Asian auction houses.
