Sally J. Han b. 1993

Sally J. Han was born in Shenyang, China.

Lives and works in New York, USA.

Jingmei "Sally" Han, born in China and raised in South Korea, moved to New York where she received a BFA from School of Visual Arts, 2016, with a Silas H. Rhodes Scholarship. In 2019 she received an MFA with an emphasis on drawing at New York Academy of Art. Her first solo exhibition in New York was at Fortnight Institute in January 2020. Since then, Han has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including Nine Lives, Gallery Belenius, Stockholm, 2023; Lost and Found, Fortnight Institute, New York, 2022; a Solo Presentation at Independent Art Fair, New York, 2021. She has participated in selected group exhibitions at the Flag Art Foundation, Wonder Women, curated by Kathy Huang, Jeffrey Deitch NY and LA, Pictus Porrectus: Reconsidering the Full-Length Portrait, curated by Alison M. Gingeras and Dodie Kazanjian, Art&Newport Foundation, Dark Light: Realism in the Age of Post-Truths, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Aïshti Foundation, Pictures Girls Make, curated by Alison M. Gingeras, BLUM gallery, The Selves, Nicola Vassell gallery, Teach me how to fish, curated by Will Leung, Art Intelligence Global.

Works can be found in the collections of the Aïshti Foundation in Lebanon and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.

“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