Ai Huang is a Tokyo-based artist whose work focuses on portraiture through the gelatin silver process.
Her career began at 20 when Japanese photographer Masato Seto discovered a drawing she had casually sketched on the back of a receipt. Struck by the raw talent, he immediately proposed to hold her first solo exhibition in Tokyo.
By 21, Ai Huang’s art book KABRALA was published, and her work began appearing in major international venues like the Venice Arsenale, Los Angeles Brewery Art Walk, the Shoto Museum of Art, and the National Art Center in Tokyo. Her prints have since been acquired by prominent collections such as the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Art, Akio Nagasawa Gallery, and National Gallery Chifte Hammam.
Early in her career, she worked directly on photographic paper, employing her hands, fingers, and hair to drag the liquid chemicals to create imagery with vivid colors. Later, she transitioned to expired large-format negatives gifted by Photographer Eikoh Hosoe, which she then prints in the darkroom. "The moving liquid exists with me, alive as an extension of my body, it breathes, grows, a continuation of my being," Ai explains.
Ai's pieces lay bare the multiplicity of human nature, the instinctive urge of humanity and the territorial invasion of thoughts, exposing the conflicting dimensions of the individual self. Her tactile and fluid process, marked by organic gestures and physical involvement stands as a symbol, offering a vision of connection as visceral, alive, and truly primal.