HUANG HAI-HSIN (B. 1984)

Born in Taipei in 1984, Brooklyn-based artist Huang Hai-Hsin composes works that explore the space between humor, tragedy, and horror. Her works delve into the threat of violence and fear in society and the contradictions ones encounters in daily life. While often executed in a colorful and lighthearted palette, at their heart, her whimsical narratives express a dark and unique sense of humor—The Wild (Lot 1), is no exception.

In this work, a bear has wandered into the center of a campground causing a nearly comical amount of devastation. The beast himself appears quite small and diminutive, yet pandemonium ensues around him—one camper tries to ward the creature off with fire, others take aim with their rifles, several campers have fainted in the hysteria, while still others pose for a selfie with their visitor. Each person expresses their shock at seeing the bear, yet it is he that belongs in this environment and they who are behaving ‘wild’. Through this work, perhaps Huang is calling attention to the tendency of contemporary society to sensationalize even the smallest of perceived threats, inflating them into full blown catastrophes.

Huang Hai-Hsin received her BA from National Taipei University of Education in 2007 and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2009. Numerous solo exhibitions of her work have been held in New York and Taipei. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, The Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel, and the Kyoto Culture Museum. Her paintings are in the permanent collections of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney, and Artbank in Taiwan. Huang’s sketches of museum-goers in New York were recently compiled and published by nos:books in a volume entitled There Is No Future that was presented at the 2016 NY Art Book Fair.