Kehan Lai
Kehan Lai, 'Untitled (curbside grass)', 2026, oil on canvas, 50x 40cm
Kehan’s work presents reality as an interwoven and contingent field. She's drawn to thresholds: water surfaces, mirrors or glass; translucent or semi- transparent objects. They mediate, filter, distort, admit and reflect. The paintings combine fragments from multiple objects, pushing beyond what the eye could encounter in a single glance. The separation between planes remains deliberately ambiguous. Forms permeate into another. Blurred edges undo the certainty of isolated objects. The works turn toward the visual field not as something already understood, but as something still arriving. Forms do not declare themselves; they hover, incline, or withdraw. If reality is anything at all, it is not a fixed arrangement of names and forms, but a shifting entanglement of encounters. In which we are only passing, only partially present, scarcely more solid than the reflections we leave behind.
Kehan Lai's works are caught between the familiar and what slips slightly off comprehension. They reveal reality not as fixed but as relational, continually reformed through perception. She received a BFA from the Parsons School of Design, and is currently pursuing an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
Recent solo exhibitions include“Undulation” (EDA, Shenzhen, 2023); group exhibitions include "Ambition" (West Bund Dome, Shanghai, 2026), “Pixel Horizon” (Zhangyuan, Shanghai, 2025),“Ceramics Club” (White Column, New York, 2025),“Being Present” (Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, 2024),“Center Annual” (Houston Center for Photography, Texas, 2023), “Unbound 11” (Candela Gallery, Richmond, 2022), and “Rea Arte” (Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, 2022). She is a finalist for Athens Photo Festival (Athens, 2024) and has completed an artist residency at Swatch Art Peace Hotel (Shanghai, 2021-2022).