HAN MENGYUN
artist-filmmaker-poet-mother
b.1989 Wuhan, raised in Shenzhen
currently based in London and China
EDUCATION
2018 M.F.A. (Distinction), University of Oxford, UK
2016 Research Student, Sanskrit and Classical Indian Aesthetics, Kyoto University, Japan
2012 B.A, Studio Art, Bard College, US
SELECTED SOLO AND DUO EXHIBITIONS
2026, Gift, Yuz Museum Shanghai (forthcming)
2025 Jewels of Impermanence, ShanghART Singapore, Singapore
2024 What Migrates Shall Remain, Zhi Art Museum, China
2023 The Unending Rose, ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai
2023 Serenade, ShanghART, Art Basel, Hong Kong
2022 Night, ESEA Contemporary(formerly CFCCA), ManchesterThe Glass Bead Game, ShanghART, Art Basel, Basel
Night, IS A GALLERY, Shanghai2019 Splinters of Jade, A Thousand Plateaus Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China
2013 In Between Islands, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Threads of Kinship, KADIST X He Art Museum, Shunde, China
2025 Bukhara Biennial: Recipes for Broken Hearts, curated by Diana Campbell, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Screening, Unconditional Space, curated by Aaditya Sathish, Wonderfruit, Pattaya, Thailand
Screening: “Slow Revolution”, curated by Fang Yan, Goethe Institut, Shanghai
Performance: Under the Aegis of the Moon, Asia Now 11th Edition, Paris
Future of Nostalgia, Art Week Tokyo, Japan
Lining Revealed–A Journey Through Folk Wisdom and Contemporary Vision, Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile, Hong Kong
Screening “Night Sutra”, The Courtauld, London
Tracing Impermanence, AlUla Arts Festival, AlUla, Saudi Arabia
The Birth of Poetry, The Shop House, Hong Kong
2024 Busan Biennale: Seeing in the Dark, curated by Vera Mey and Philipe Pirotte, Busan, South Korea
Unknownness is the Way, Delfina Foundation, London
Poetry by the Barbarian, ASE Foundation, Shanghai
The Threshold under Turbine Vents, Sunblanket Foundation, Seoul
10 Years: ShanghART at West Bund 2015-2024, ShanghART, Shanghai
The Inner Side of the Wind, Gallery Weekend Beijing, Beijing
2023 Bordercrossing: Possibilities and Interactions, Forbes China Contemporary Young Artists, Yuz Museum, Shanghai
Painting Unsettled, UCCA Edge, curated by Shixuan Luan, Shanghai, China
SIGG: Chinese Contemporary art from the Sigg Collection, SONGEUN, Seoul
2022 A Place for Concealment, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, China
2021 Diriyah Biennale: Feeling the Stones, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
The Dwelling Place of the Other in Me, Power Station of Art, Shanghai
Spring Discovery: Works on Paper, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China
2019 Activating Our Archives, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK
2017 World By World, NordArt, Büdelsdorf, Germany
2017 Spring Discovery, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China
2016 On Paper, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
2014 Living in Chengdu, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan
2013 Ink of Two Cities, Sha Tin Town Hall, Hong Kong
Painting as Voices, Jinling Art Museum, Nanjing, China
2012 The 8th International Ink Art Biennale of Shenzhen, Guan Shanyue Art Museum, China
Samsara, Mason Gross Galleries, Rutgers University, NJ, USA
Mausoleum of Dust, Bard College Thesis Show, NY, US
AWARDS & GRANTS
2024 K11 Art Foundation Artist Prize, Shortlist, Hong Kong
Robb Report 2024 Young Artist Award
2023 30 Forbes Artists, China
2018 The Emery Award, Shortlist, Oxford
2017 Oxford University Levett Scholarship, Oxford
2012 Mason Gross School of the Arts Teaching Assistant Fellowship, Rutgers University
RESIDENCIES
2025 Visual Art Residency, AlUla, Saudi Arabia
2024 Artist Residency, Delfina Foundation, London
2022 Artist Residency, Esea Contemporary(formerly CFCCA), Manchester
SELECTED PRESS & REVIEWS
2026 ArtAsiaPacific Almanac, Artists of the Year: Han Mengyun, One to Watch, Michele Chan
2025 Delfina Foundation, Platform, A Lover of Tradition: Conversation with Han Mengyun, May Adadol Ingawanij
Canvas, Weaving a New Future, Issue 118, Summer 2025, Katherine VolkThe Art Journal, Seeing the Self through “What Migrates Shall Remain”, Yiru Wang
ARTnews China, Han Mengyun: A Love that Permits Fraying, Jerome
The Art Journal, Between Contemporary Art and Folk Craft: “Lining Revealed” Weaves Humanistic Narratives, Xiting Huang
ArtReview China, The Possibility of an Oxymoron: on surging undercurrents—Moving Between Folk Wisdom and Contemporary Vision, btr
2024 Afterall Journal, Issue 57, The University of Chicago Press, Night, Han Mengyun
The Art Newspaper, From ‘Bleeding’ Sculptures to Pirate Utopias: How Women, Queer, and Non-Binary Artists Are Reshaping the Korean Art Scene, Louisa Buck
Art in Culture, Busan Biennale 2024: Intentional Incompleteness or Incorrect Completion, Jaeyong Park
ArtReview, Busan Biennale 2024 Review: Artistic Privilege Is Swept Aside, Mark Rappolt
Canvas, Darkness Reimagined: Busan Biennale, Insun WooMonopol Magazin für Kunst und Leben, Busan Biennale in Südkorea: Von Piraten Lernen, Elisa Mussack
ARTnews China, Complex Landscape: Thoughts on Practice from a New Generation of Female Artists in China, Jackie Lou
Limited Views, Han Mengyun and Enduring Imprints, Vivek Gupta
2023 ArtReview China, Interview with Han Mengyun: Translation Is Ultimately the Politics of Love, Lai Fei
Ocula, Han Mengyun: A Mind, Is a Mirror, Is a Rose, Misong Kim
2022 ArtAsiaPacific, Issue 128, Everyday Poetry: Han Mengyun, Pamela Wong
The Thinker, Issue. 73, Mirror as Mind, Cai Zhenyu
ArtAsiaPacific, Crossing the River by ‘Feeling the Stones’, Paul Laster
Artforum, Stepping Stones: The Saudi Scene Takes the World Stage, Rahel Aima
Ocula, Han Mengyun’s The Pavilion of Three Mirrors, Sam Gaskin
2013 World art Magazine, The Ineffable, Fu Chong
Beijing: Mengyun Han at the Today Art Museum.” Art Critical, Jonathan Goodman
Exhibition catalogue essay: Whence Things Have Their Origin: The Meaning of Abstract Painting and In Between Islands, Fu Chong
TALKS & PRESENTATIONS
2025 When East meets East: The Rise of Inter-Asian Dialogues in Contemporary Art, Asia NOW, ParisTradition in Transition: Folk Craft and Contemporary Art, Exchange, Art Basel HK
Artist Talk “Mirror Pavilion” & “Night Sutra”, Initial Research, New York
A Women’s Sutra: Han Mengyun in Conversation with Ashley Thompson”, The Courtauld, London
Artist Talk “Han Mengyun: Day and Night Practice”, AlUla Arts Festival, AlUla, Saudi Arabia
2023 Artist Talk “Wrongness as Method”, UCCA Edge, Shanghai
2022 Artist Talk “Craft as Transcultural Practice”, ESEA Contemporary, Manchester
Artist Talk, Open Practice Committee, Department of Visual Arts, University of Chicago
2021 Spirituality in Art Practice: Han Mengyun in conversation with Lulwah Al Homoud, Diriyah Biennale, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Silent Thunder: The Intersection between Buddhism and Contemporary Art, UCCA, Beijing
ARTIST WRITING AND PUBLICATIONS
2023 ArtAsiaPacific, Issue 134, One on One: Han Mengyun on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Han Mengyun
2022 New Museum Triennial: Soft Water Hard Stone, Phaidon, Yu Ji & Han Mengyun
2021 LUNCHEON Magazine, Issue 12, Karlo Kacharava’s World of the World, Han Mengyun
Chose Commune, Unearth001: Conversation with Shun Kadohashi, Han Mengyun
The Thinker, Between Liminal Spaces: Interview with Edmund de Waal, Han Mengyun
Hyperallergic, Sanya Kantarovsky’s Truth-Bearing Fantasy, by Han Mengyun
Hyperallergic, Echoes of Buddhist ‘Emptiness’ in Contemporary Chinese Art, Han Mengyun
Leap, Painting as the Frame of Perception, Han Mengyun
American Suburb X, Photography as Mindfulness of Death: Deanna Dikeman’s Leaving and Waving, Han Mengyun
2020 Hyperallegic, Painting the Eternity of Time: Tu Hongtao’s Twisting and Turning, Han Mengyun
COLLECTIONS
Uli Sigg Collection, Switzerland
Wemhöner Collection, Germany
KADIST Foundation, USA/FR
DC Collection, Thailand
BAO Foundation, China
Zhi Art Museum, China
TEACHING & VISITING
2025 SOAS, London, UK
2024 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, London
Slade School of Fine Art, University College of London
Work.Master programme(MFA), HEAD-Genève, Switzerland
2023 Institute of Creative Arts, Birmingham City University
2022 School of Visual Arts, University of Chicago, Chicago
2012 Mason Gross School of the Art, Rutgers University, New Jersey