Artist Statement
My practice is a study of light, time, and dynamic balance through painting, movement, and daily ritual.
The work reads as abstract, but forms a visual language developed through years of refinement and reduction into a personal iconography. Each piece is a record of practice—marking a moment within a larger whole.
Natural Progression began as observation—an attempt to connect the external world with an introspective practice. As landscapes shaped the paintings, the paintings reshaped the mind and body. The work continues as an expression of inner light and lived experience.
--
Artist Bio
Mike Han (b. 1984, Ann Arbor, MI) is a Los Angeles–based artist of Korean heritage. In his early years, he was exposed to Mid-Century Modern design through his father’s work at Herman Miller and Knoll, shaping his sensitivity to form and space. During this time, he also developed an early connection to New York City’s graffiti culture, architecture, and the singular experience of Keith Haring’s Pop Shop in the early 1990s.
Despite these influences, Han did not consider himself an artist until his mid-twenties. Following a period of personal crisis, a seminal trip to Korea in 2008 reconnected him with a heritage he had distanced himself from during childhood, shaped by a stark cultural shift from a diverse East Coast upbringing to a predominantly white rural community in Michigan.
That transition marked a period of displacement and identity fracture that would become both a source of tension and a foundation for his work. In Korea, he encountered woodcarving, calligraphy, and traditional architecture—an experience that became a turning point, shifting his focus inward and toward a deeper sense of identity and self.
Han has exhibited work in Los Angeles, Seoul, Detroit, and Miami, and has completed commissions in Osaka, Florence, New York, and Chicago for a range of public and private clients. His work is held in corporate and institutional collections and has been featured in international press across art, design, and culture.
Han lives and works in Santa Monica, with his French bulldog Pudge.