Hanzi He

BIO
Statement

Hanzi He's practice centres on a simple observation: when something touches a surface, it leaves behind evidence of that contact. She is drawn to traces from daily life — marks that nobody notices at the time, but that carry the weight of ordinary moments. Working through etching and drawing, her work moves between passive recording of accidental imprints and active mark-making, exploring how humble, everyday traces can preserve something of the time and touch from which they came.

Email
Instagram

Work

• • Bread  Etching  Project
  • Bread
    
  • Bread is Bread
    
  • Edible Frames
    
  • Inter-interscapes
    
  • Peeling
    
  • Huling Project
    
  • 
    

Statement

Index

---

I am fascinated by the traces left after objects come into contact—those residual, subtle, organic, and often imperfect imprints. To me, they are unequivocal indices of events that have taken place, frozen slices of time. I strive to capture these moments: the texture of bread on a zinc plate, shifting from clear to abstract as it dries; the subtle hollows pressed into paper by pen or pierced into wax by needle, perceptible only through touch or corrosion; the abstract circles traced by rotating charcoal or sponge; or the scars left when a work is peeled from a wall.

In terms of method, I choose to engage in a direct, unadorned dialogue with materials. Etching and drawing are my preferred "languages." The physicality of etching allows me to permanently preserve traces encountered by chance—a press, a scratch—each is a passive reception and faithful preservation of past contact. Drawing, on the other hand, signifies for me the unfinished, continuous perception, and the flow of consciousness. In my recent work, this flow manifests as repetitive linear patterns—parallel lines, waves, circles—first drawn, then translated into hard-ground etching. The act of retracing these marks with a needle on wax, followed by acid's bite, transforms a temporal gesture into a permanent imprint, yet the trace of the hand's rhythm endures.

My practice comprises two parallel investigations that, while distinct, share a common concern with material time. In one mode, I collect and archive accidental traces (passive reception); in the other, I construct rhythmic patterns through deliberate mark-making (active weaving). The former prioritizes indexical fidelity; the latter pursues visual harmony and compositional clarity. Both compel me to focus on the very moment of 'generation' itself, and increasingly lead me to use ordinary, readily available materials, exploring within constraints the possibility of a direct correspondence between matter and memory.

This commitment to trace-evidence has shaped my ethical thinking about creative practice itself. I once leaned toward creating large, imposing works, but this was followed by persistent questions about how such works could be stored and accommodated after completion. This prompted a shift—toward exploring works that are physically manageable to preserve, yet dense enough in emotional resonance to endure. This is not a compromise, but rather a more responsible practice: how can a work, humble in form, function like a well-preserved piece of evidence, continuing to speak of the specific moment and touch from which it originated?

My art is a private practice of preservation. I invite viewers to draw close—not to observe a scene, but to examine an index—and to sense those simple, honest details signalled jointly by temperature, pressure, time, and chance. What I collect and preserve are the vivid traces left by these fleeting contacts.