by Nick Christophers
It is no doubt that America is a place for any artist to feel free to express their talent. This is the case for Xu Han who left China to give herself the opportunity to share her artistic vision. Yet she did start her first steps towards that in 2012 in Beijing as a Graphic Designer. From 2012 to 2015 she honed her skill as a designer until she saw the “writing on the wall” and moved to New York and applied to Parsons School of Design.
That wasn’t until 2018 where should would eventually graduate with a degree in Design and Technology. While she attended the school, she also was Tutor Specialist at the college. After that, she was continued doing art in New York. Her personal type of work is categorized as New Media & Conceptual art. To get a better understanding her New Media, is the discipline of combining art with programming languages and exploring new forms of art in a non-traditional format.
“In America there is more artistic freedom not found in China. Here I can create anything I desire. In my native land you would have to avoid anything political.”
Xu not only found freedom but also managed to win awards in her adopted land. She won three to be exact. The first was in 2017 called the President’s Scholarship to attend Parsons as an outstanding incoming student at 75% tuition, a great honor for her in many ways. This would soon be followed up with the Creative Technology Award for the NYC Media Lab for her piece “The Language of Tears”. That same piece would win The Finalist Award in 2019 for the Present Future Art & Technology Star.
“All my work is meant to challenge people’s perceptions of art while affecting human emotions. I enjoy creating new connections between viewers of my work and myself.”
Since she has been in America she has participated in several exhibits and two more in the back-burner. One of them being the Pittsburgh Performance Art Festival where she showcased her performance piece “Cocooned” then in September of 2018 and 2019 she took part in the NYC Media Lab Annual Summit at The New School offering her piece “The Language of Tears” where she received the creative technology award. On the calendar are three more shows; Future: F=D (Fixity Equals Death) online pavilion also showing “Five Facts About Tears” (from Nov 1st – March 1st 2020), then to Delaware County Community College for the Contemporary Juried Exhibition of Regional Emerging Artists (Nov 6th – Dec 13) then the NeurlPS Creativity Workshop in Montreal, Canada (Dec 2019) where she will showcase the award winning piece “The Language of Tears”.
For the Delaware show Xu earched for open calls and applied to find they accepted not one but three of her pieces. She is very excited to be taking part in the upcoming show yet her real focus is the exhibit in Canada that she feels will be her best. Xu is an artist with a specific goal to enjoy her artistic freedom and share it with everyone she comes into contact with. She is one of many new artists with fresh ideas with a message and a mission in mind.
