Hairi Han
Hairi Han is an educator, designer, and book artist living in the Chicago metropolitan area. Her visual communication research employs a book as an art form as she explores tangible storytelling with the integration of conventional hand-crafted means and new digital-based technology. She has received awards in numerous art competitions, including the US Bank Celebration of the Arts, Art at Westwood, Duncan Hines Arts, All Kentucky Juried Fine Arts, and 64 Arts National Juried Arts. Hairi’s artwork has also been recognized in 40+ regional, national, and international exhibitions, including Book Art: Tactile & Visible Stories Solo exhibition, San Diego Book Arts exhibition, Capitol Arts Two People exhibition, Art Venice Biennale to name a few. Some of her artist’s books are now in the permanent collections of the Kentucky Museum and in private collections of art collectors.
Hairi is currently an Associate Professor of Graphic Arts & Design (GAD) at Benedictine University. Since she launched the bachelor’s degree program for GAD majors at the university in 2011, Hairi has taught all levels of undergraduate design courses with a wide range of art and design subjects as the sole design professor. Her dedicated efforts towards premier design education have been well reflected in her students’ outstanding academic and professional achievements, and, as a result, she was selected as the recipient of the University’s Distinguished Faculty Teaching Excellence Award in 2022.
CMYK Rhapsody
I create both the artistic form and its contents simultaneously and interchangeably. In the book titled “CMYK rhapsody,” I combined the motion-implied 2D typography with the accordion style 3D structure to evoke the lyrical moods of narrative design. The CMYK color, which is composed of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, is crucial in print design, and this book is to express my sincere appreciation towards the CMYK color that I experience every day as a visual artist. Through the two sides of the book, I incorporate the harmony of CMYK as the sparkly stars in the night sky with visual contrast.
Multiple dualities are explored using the two sides of the book “CMYK rhapsody” with repeated contrasts: 2D page layout vs. 3D sculpture, CMYK color vs. Grayscale color, English vs. Korean, folding vs. stretching, binding vs. cutting, pop-up letters vs. beads attached constellations, layered surface vs. flat surface.
Each pop-up letter on the one side represents an initial of the constellations on the other side of the book. The 14 grayscale constellations of Boötes, Lepus, Orion, Gemini, Hercules, Taurus, Virgo, Scorpius, Pegasus, Aquarius, Centaurus, Eridanus, Draco, and Ursa Major are composed of the stories of the constellations in the Korean language. Visual interpretations of the stars’ movements in the sky are generated on the other side of the book with the overlapped, blended, and symbolic CMYK color letters in English.
When the book is extended out, the pop-up letters inside each page create a word such as BLOG, HTV, SPACE, and EDU as visual puns. This book also has a playful function as a tactile object which visitors can touch to change its shape.
In my book, form is an essential part of representing its contents while the contents are also a vital part of the physical art form. Form and contents are characterized as being inseparable in visual communication like two sides of the same coin. They are deeply related with each other as a unique way of discovering and delivering stories in visual communication of art.
