Helen Deng

    Deng.hneng@gmail.com

    HAN JIAYING is unquestionably one of the most influential graphic designers in China. Born in 1961, Han has flourished in the 30 years since China’s reform and opening up, and has won recognition and numerous awards at home and abroad.

    Now the designer is holding his first solo exhibition at the OCT Art & Design Gallery, the first design-themed art museum in China. The exhibition, “Reflection/Han Jiaying Design” not only gives viewers a chance to appreciate the beauty of Han’s art, but also shows people the efforts that a generation of Chinese designers, represented by Han, has made towards the exploration and pursuit of a local viewpoint and identity.

    Han’s design works have a clear Chinese element. This can be felt throughout his works, from the depiction of the hand gestures and grains in his earliest work “Food Is Everything for Man” (created in 1992, reprinted in 1994); the image of the Mao jacket, once a popular garment in China, in “Communication” (1996); to the ink-dripping signs and indistinct imagery of “Interaction” (1999).

    The most interesting is his “Frontiers” series, designed as covers for Frontiers magazine. Using the common components of Chinese writing such as dots, vertical lines, squares, and hooked lines as well as making single characters grow into a field of characters, the designer gives a modernistic touch to the beauty of traditional Chinese calligraphy.

    Like ancient Chinese scholars, Han has a strong connection with mountains and stones. Han’s design for Hermes shop window in Shenzhen, for example, was inspired by the rocks which surround Taihu Lake, a large lake in the Yangtze River Delta. He explains that escaping to nature is one of the major themes of his works.

    The exhibition also includes his personal collections and his more recent installation and video works.

    On the first floor of the gallery is Han’s collection of food coupons, diaries, meeting notices and bills from China in the 1960s and 1970s.

    On the third floor of the gallery, there is a set of Song-style porcelain designed by Han, who believes that the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was the time when Chinese art reached its zenith. There are also models of punctuations made by different materials, and a “poem” made of bronze, highlighting the designer’s diversified artistic explorations.

    Time: Until Jan. 28, 2013

    Venue: OCT Art & Design Gallery, Shennan Boulevard, Nanshan District (南山区华侨城华•美术馆)

    Metro: Luobao Line, OCT Station (华侨城站), Exit C

    Han Jiaying’s creative trajectory is a reflection of the development of Chinese graphic design since Deng Xiaopeng’s era of reform and opening up.

    — He Jianping, graphic designer