Guild Gallery is pleased to present "Sans Titre," the first U.S. solo exhibition of Han Chiao (b. 1978, Taiwan), a Paris-based artist known for her work in sculpture. Originally trained as a fashion photographer, Han Chiao’s eye for composition and form translated with clarity in clay. While studying in Paris, France and Jingdezhen, China, she found her voice in angular and curvaceous vessels that are rife with contradictions. Sophisticated lines are often delivered with naïve textures, classical forms are reimagined in surreal proportions, and sensuality always has an edge.

For this exhibition, Han Chiao is debuting more than 20 new works, including some of her largest pieces to date. Shifting from past explorations of colorful glazing and painterly tableware, Han Chiao has been focused on working with rough, black clay glazed in thin, transparent white washes. This unvarnished approach communicates her sensitivity for shape and complexity without a scrim of artifice. “I chose this rough clay on purpose. It’s untamed, something savage,” says Han Chiao.

Honoring the texture of the earth she works with, the clay is left coarse, marked by the imprint of her body and, occasionally, her own fingerprints. Glazing, when employed, is done sparingly, in thin, dripping washes. “Life is not perfect, it’s not so symmetrical. Each piece is supposed to have its own life. I want them to be quite emotionally alive.”

Han Chiao is attracted to the resulting interplay of tension. She describes the impulse to top a romantic arc with the surprise of a spiked mouth as a gesture of honesty, something that allows her to reveal more of herself—making her artistic practice something of a homecoming.