Pae White was born in Pasadena, California in 1963. She studied for her BA in 1985 at Scripps College in Claremont, California, followed by a period at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine in 1990, and received an MFA in 1991 at the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena, California. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Testing the traditional boundaries between the applied and fine arts, Pae White explores the connections between the material and the ephemeral, exploring how immaterial conceptual practices can be portrayed through the physicality of craft. Installations by White often suspend an ephemeral, transient moment in the physical space of the gallery; for example, works have included plumes of smoke monumentalised in tapestry, words from dreams captured in sculpture and movement frozen in paper mobiles.

White has exhibited at the Whitney Biennale in 2010, the Venice Biennale in 2009, and the Folkestone Triennale in 2008 and has had numerous other high-profile projects for Transport for London, the New Opera House in Oslo and Berlin Brandenburg airport.

She has also had solo exhibitions at venues such as South London Gallery, London, 2013; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, 2011; Site Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2011; The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, 2010; 1301PE, Los Angeles, California, 2009; galleria Francesca kaufmann, Milan, Italy, 2008; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, 2007; and greengrassi, London, England, 2007.

Glossary

  • Craft

    The creation of handmade objects intended to be both useful and decorative.

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.

Portfolio