Duyi Han: An Artist Who Has Caught Our Attention
Author / Laura Ewert
Originally published on Monopol Magazin's 2025 Dec Issue
"No one should be taught that love means enduring crap." This phrase, roughly translated, is embroidered on a chair cushion. It was designed by Duyi Han, an artist who dedicates himself to neuroaesthetics through objects and spatial installations. Or, more simply: one who reflects very contemporary sensibilities and states of mind in his works.
Chemical formulas for Omega-3 or Vitamin B12 are embroidered onto a chair, as are those for the neurotransmitter Serotonin and the antidepressant Sertraline. A floor lamp's shade bears Billie Eilish's lyric: "My doctors can't explain my symptoms or my pain." A bulging, organically shaped cabinet references Chinese incense burners. There are visual nods to Buddhist prayer flags or Taoist talismans. But instead of religious inscriptions, they feature what preoccupies people today, what constitutes happiness.
Duyi Han was born in 1994 in China; spiritually, he says, he resides in Western and Southern Europe, NYC, and LA. Physically, along with his production studio, he is based in Shanghai. He studied architecture at Cornell University in New York and worked for the Swiss architecture duo Herzog & de Meuron. "I like that intellectual sharpness one senses in Basel," he says.
His architectural training, he says, helped him develop his passion for beauty and emotional experiences. He uses craft techniques to evoke emotional and sensory responses. Texts and symbols are semiotic content that communicates directly with people, eliciting a complex mix of feelings "associated with visiting temples—awe, respect, sublimity, fear, confrontation."
His Oxytocin Vitrine is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. For Dior, he reimagined the Lady Dior bag as a crystalline object to look inside, creating both an unsettling transparency and a miniature sanctuary. At Art Basel Hong Kong, Shanghai's Bank Gallery presented an installation for which he printed Buddhist temple banners with texts resembling the false fortune-cookie promises of the tech elite, à la Elon Musk.
Sydney's White Rabbit Gallery recently showed his collection of "neuro-aesthetic objects and environments," which engages with mental health and contemporary Chinese culture. And at Art Basel Paris, he was featured in a solo booth by Bank Gallery, displaying the object collection Ordinance of the Subconscious Treatment and the installation Visions of Bloom.
Duyi Han's works possess something transcendent and uncanny: "I am not religious, but I engage with Taoist ideas of transformation and transience. Because what interests me most when studying the history of visual culture is not specific styles, movements, periods, or places, but how these things change over time."
Inspired by the idea of incarnation from East Asian philosophies, he views his approach as "an empty vessel or embryo that takes concrete form within a specific project." These are conscious compositions in a poetic and surreal dimension, meant to evoke a sense of existential calm and facilitate meditation. "Ultimately, it fosters a feeling of respect and compassion for the blossoming of life."
