Lot 118: DEBBIE HAN (Korean, B. 1969)

DEBBIE HAN (Korean, B. 1969) Social Graces signed 'D. Han' (lower right) inkjet print paper: 56.6 x 109.2 cm. (22 1/4 x 43 in.) image: 35.5 x 91.4 cm. (14 x 36 in.) Executed in 2012

56.6 x 109.2 cm.

Debbie Han is a Korean-American artist who grew up in Los Angeles and studied B.A. in art at University of California, Los Angeles and MFA at Pratt Institute, New York. Han puts great efforts to investigate the female imagery in order to explore contemporary cultural dynamics and global social creation of identity. Han's work challenges the clich?s and banal idealisation of the female body, inviting viewers to reconsider the nature of perception, the creation of identity and the processes of culturalisation. Han created sculptures and a photo series named Grace by combining present-day Asian female bodies and European classical sculpture heads. For the sake of creating the illusory effect of the sculptures, a conscientious digital rendering process was utilised to alter skin texture to marble-like smoothness. These hybrid figures, combining the characteristics of actuality and ideality, past and present, and East and West, ultimately challenge the traditional aesthetics of figurative sculpture. Han received The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2007. She was also the recipient of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2009 with The Seated Three Graces from the above-mentioned Graces Series. -- The Sovereign Art Foundation (SAF) annually organises the most established contemporary art prize in Asia. SAF's aim is twofold: to help elevate the profiles of mid-career artists across the region, and to raise money for disadvantaged children, using the arts as rehabilitation, education and therapy. For the first time, The Sovereign Art Foundation (SAF) and Christie's have collaborated in auction to raise much-needed funds for SAF's Make it Better (MIB) project; an initiative that provides art workshops to disadvantaged children in Hong Kong. Until now, the MIB project has largely focused on providing weekly workshops to the Society for Community Organization (SoCo) and the Hong Kong Society for Protection of Children (HKSPC), however this year SAF aims to greatly expand the project and hire full time art therapists and teachers to work with the children. To facilitate this expansion, Christie's has generously offered SAF the platform through which to raise funds and ultimately support the programme. In this collaboration, selected Sovereign Asian Art Prize finalists and winners have very generously donated artworks to a meaningful March auction at Christie's, with proceeds feeding directly back to The Sovereign Art Foundation's Make It Better project. The selection of contemporary works being auctioned ranges from unique sculptures, to digital prints, to a knitted shredded body container crafted from an authentic collection of Tin Tin Comic Books. Artists including Movana Chen, Debbie Han, Dongi Lee, Man Fung-Yi, MAP Office and JeongMee Yoon have contributed to the project, further cementing their relationship with The Sovereign Art Foundation and aiding its many charitable art projects across the region.