Stephanie Shih
American, 1986-

Salmon Steak, 2021
ceramic

Courtesy of the artist and Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco © Stephanie Shih, Photographer: Robert Bredvad



Stephanie Shih - undated photo

“As a photographer, I prize the absence of light as much as light itself. Beauty exists in the shadowed depths where our imagination sees more than our eyes.” – Stephanie Shih

COMMENTS

Stephanie H. Shih was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Taiwanese immigrants in 1986. Known for her trompe l’oeil sculptures of Asian groceries, Shih has exhibited and lectured widely throughout the United States.

Using reference and repetition, her work addresses complicated themes of individual and cultural identity. Through the lens of shared experience in cuisine and material consumption, she provokes consideration of layered concepts of self-identity and belonging within the Asian-American diaspora.

At once prosaic and nostalgic, her ceramic pieces depict homemade dishes of dumplings, meat, and fish alongside familiarly packaged brands from Spam and Sriracha to Heinz and Carnation, all in porcelain and paint, faithfully rendered while unapologetically bearing evidence of the artist’s hand, juxtaposing product with produce and quietly questioning the very notion of authenticity of both object and self.

- Harkawik Gallery, 2022
https://www.harkawik.com/stephanie-h-shih

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Stephanie Shih transforms goods found in Asian-American grocery stores and homes into sculptures characterized by hand-painted, imperfect lettering and rustic, irregular surfaces. Gold Plum Chinkiang Vinegar represents an ingredient typically found in an Asian-American kitchen but likely unknown elsewhere. “I wanted to give a nod to everyone who actually knows the most important dipping sauce is not soy sauce,” the artist says, “but black vinegar.” While Shih’s subject matter is nongrandiose and immediate, the pieces are not necessarily as direct as the objects they represent. The artist pushes back against Orientalism, a 19th-century Euro-American art movement that depicted a narrow, exoticized version of the “Orient” for a Western audience. By showing modest, everyday items, she deflates inaccurate and demeaning fantasies about the Asian diaspora while lending faithful shape to her community, as she expresses, art “[f]or us, by us.”

- WARES! Extraordinary Ceramics and the Ordinary Home, 2023