Hao Shen (b. 1981, Inner Mongolia, China) is an artist living and working in Beijing, China. He obtained his BFA in printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (2005) and his MFA Fine Art at School of Visual Arts in New York, NY (2025). Shen explores his subjects via painting, printmaking, and drawing. He had two solo exhibitions in Beijing: Micro House – Shen Hao Solo Exhibition (2012) and Fragmented Selection – Shen Hao Solo Exhibition (2014), both at Asia Art Center, Beijing. He also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Totally Open at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, OH (2025), MARKS at A Space Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2024), Another Vision-Research Exhibition on the Visual Language of Oil Painting, Times Art Museum in Beijing (2016), Image Research Room (No.2): Concept and Language in Painting Process”, Right View Art Museum, Beijing (2015), Finishing Touch – Five Contemporary Young Artists Exhibition at Asia Art Center, Beijing (2012), Market Trend – Youth Oil Painting & Sculpture Exhibition at Beauty Tao Art Center, Beijing (2011), New Academy, White Space, Beijing (2011), Art Nova 100, Beijing (2011), Times, PYO Gallery, Beijing (2010), BrakingⅡ, XI Concept, Beijing (2010), GREEN – Art Fair, China World Trade Center, Beijing (2009), Braking: Beijing, Segment Space, Beijing (2008), Braking, Shanghai Mingyuan Art Center, Shanghai (2008).

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?

I was born and raised in Inner Mongolia, China. In my early years, I was trained in drawing and painting and aimed myself for Central Academy of Fine Arts. I spent countless hours studying forms and colors from life. My training improved my technique, and it also helped me see the relation between form, structure, and appearance. When I entered the Academy, I chose printmaking as my major and focused on traditional methods such as mezzotint. The reproductive nature and material quality of printmaking led me to think about representation and reproduction. After graduation, I lacked the conditions to continue printmaking, so I turned to painting and began to include sculpture and installation in my practice, inspired by Warhol’s idea that artists should explore across different media. During that period, I was motivated to keep reflecting and breaking from old habits. Over time, I formed a personal path based on folding, imitation, fragmented selection, and reconstruction.

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?

My works combine painting, sculpture, and installation. They explore how fragmented narratives can be constructed within fictional spaces, and how objects, forms, and traces carry their own inner logic. These modes of existence do not rely on anthropocentric utilities; instead, they point to the latent vitality and meaning within things themselves. I try to create a self-contained world unfamiliar to the viewer. In this world, functional and non-functional objects, fragmented images, obsolete materials, and cultural remnants coexist on equal terms. Their juxtapositions form a nonlinear visual narrative—a state of “folding” in an extended sense—where the past and present are experienced at once.

Fragmented selection, imitation, juxtaposition, reconstruction, and folding have become the central methods of my practice, among which folding is especially important. For me, folding is a way to connect objects, spirit, and time. It allows different moments and spaces to converge on a single surface. Every fold is both a break and a link. It becomes a mechanism that encloses objects within fictional situations and brings their traces into visibility. In this process, painting merges with sculpture and everyday things, pushing beyond the canvas into surrounding space.

Objects take on the role of characters. They perform self-expression in a world shaped by fiction and theatricality. This may be understood as a kind of “misreading” of the concept of the fold—yet it is this act of misreading itself that drives my work, echoing how contemporary life processes and reassembles information in nonlinear ways.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

My artistic path has gradually shifted from realist training to conceptual exploration. In my early years, rigorous realist practice taught me that imitation is not only a way to acquire skills but also a way to understand form and spatial logic. In Academy, I focused on printmaking. The reproductive quality of mezzotint led me to think about issues of representation and duplication. After graduation, I turned to oil painting, beginning with an interest in the human psyche. Over time, I discovered that objects themselves can carry memory and spiritual traces. This realization led me to abandon the human figure and make objects the main subjects of my figurative painting. Since 2012, I have adhered to an equality among pictorial elements: objects, backgrounds, and colors interact as a relational field on the canvas. I also began using only palette knives, mimicking the visual effects of the brush. In recent years, my practice has expanded into spatial dimensions. Painting is no longer confined to two dimensions but extends outward through juxtapositions, folds, irregular frames, and materials such as neon. These interventions alter the atmosphere of the exhibition space and create new networks of relations. Throughout this process, imitation, reproduction, folding, and fragmented selection have become my core methods—both as techniques and as enduring themes of my artistic journey.

Can you describe a recent project or artwork that you are particularly proud of?

In my recent work, I focus on the series Jump Out. The idea comes from a phrase I often used when learning English— “jump out of my comfort zone.” For me, this is more than a language-learning experience. It is also a metaphor for artistic practice. An artist must keep breaking away from experience and habits, reflecting on conventions, and resisting routine. Through this process, the artist reshapes the relation between self and environment. Since 2020, I have continued this series. Its core question is: how can painting break the limits of two dimensions and build an active relation with surrounding space? Can painting occupy space by extending into it? If missing elements of the canvas appear in material form in the exhibition space, can they create new perceptual relations? These questions directly led to three groups of works: You Are The Other Part of Me, Sojourner, and Memory, Once Again. 

You Are The Other Part of Me refers to Picasso’s Dove of Peace, from which I removed the eyes and the olive branch. The subjects do not stay inside the canvas. Instead, they extend outward as neon light installations. The colored light changes the atmosphere of space. It also affects the colors and viewing of nearby works. It is important to note that the neon was originally a commercial lighting system, but when placed in a gallery, its meaning changes. It is no longer only a symbol of commerce. It becomes a mediator between painting and environment. It pushes painting to expand and occupy space. Jump Out therefore responds to the question of how painting can go beyond its traditional limits. It also explores how art can reorganize matter and space to form a network of cultural, symbolic, and perceptual relations.

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?

As an artist, my greatest challenge is reflection and breakthrough in my own practice. The question is how to step out of familiar paths and explore new possibilities. This is not only about changing media but also about renewing ideas. Andy Warhol once said that good artists should not be limited to a single medium, which reminds me to adopt sculpture and installation beyond painting, and to expand my work into a more open structure. Another challenge is the flood of new theories and viewpoints. The question is how not to lose myself in this overwhelming plethora of information. My solution is to keep reading, writing, and doing research. I turn complex ideas into lines of thoughts that connect to my practice, which helps me come up with new works.

What do you hope people take away from your art when they experience it?

I hope the audience does not get a fixed conclusion from my work. It is not a judgment about the image content or the so-called “central idea,” but rather an experience of the freedom and equality of objects. Painting here is understood as an open, fluid, and relational field. In this field, there are symbiosis, coexistence, and resonance. The audience is invited to become part of this “expanded composition.”

Text & photo courtesy of Hao Shen

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