Artist Statement/ Biography

Skins, Stains, Residues, Shreds, and Rebirth. The past Ian Ha has lived in and the present he dwells in are intertwined. Ha is interested in time and memories–how we receive, store, and revisit them. Through painting, the artist seeks to transcend time, capturing elusive or intangible moments. From his aimless wanderings, Ha sees “trivial" objects that intrigue him to seek out potentials that are easily overlooked. In order to create abnormal but engaging scenes in the picture, Ha explores various possibilities of spatial illusion, where the painting not only settles as a flat surface but also has dimensional quality or reliefs.

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Ian Ha was born in Norfolk, Virginia, grew up in Yong-in, South Korea, and currently has a studio practice in New York. Ha navigates the complexities of a contemporary world flooded by fragmented information and overwhelming visual stimuli. He works in painting and printmaking, mounted within non-traditional structures to stage multidimensional spatial illusions. He uses nested shapes such as the spherical wheel and the cutout book cover, and repurposed objects such as the piano hinge. Ha received the Hosan Shin Yong-hee Award and TAKIFUJI Art Award in 2021. His exhibitions include "The Uncanny" (solo, 2022) at Rabbit & Tiger, Seoul, "Shifts and Echoes'' (duo, 2023) at Fragment Gallery, New York, and Thesis Show (group, 2024) at the Lenfest Center for Arts, New York.
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