This Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, we highlight six exhibitions featuring AAPI artists. Additionally, initiatives like Art for Change are showcasing prints by Asian American artists. These exhibitions encompass a variety of styles, from fashion-inspired hyperrealism to delicate ceramic sculptures, showcasing the diversity of AAPI art across the U.S. today.
“Painting As Method”
Alisan Fine Arts
Through June 21
The exhibition at Alisan Fine Arts features a trio of Asian American painters whose works span various generations and art historical movements, including Surrealism, hard-edge abstraction, and Chinese album painting. The late Mimi Chen Ting, the oldest artist in the show, beautifully captures the New Mexico landscape with her colorful, minimalist forms. Yifan Jiang combines animation, sculpture, and performance in her conceptual work, while her dreamlike landscape paintings take center stage. Kelly Wang focuses on materiality, utilizing Chinese ink painting and mineral layers to create ethereal monochrome abstractions. Collectively, these artists infuse their works with a sense of lyricism and fluidity.
Ellie Kayu Ng, “ Bloom! ”
Latitude Gallery New York
May 7–June 7
Ellie Kayu Ng’s recent works are inspired by her encounter with an infinity mirror in a dressing room, depicting the city and herself with striking realism. Upon closer inspection, these scenes transform into dreamlike environments. For example, Fitting Room Visions (2025) portrays a woman in a purple dress, multiplied in mirrors, exuding a sense of performance. Urban settings and nighttime interiors serve as backdrops for exploring identity through fashion-influenced imagery. Ng’s exhibition, “ Bloom!,” features 11 new paintings that reflect identity as a fluid concept, continuously refracted through performance.
Ng, originally from Hong Kong and now based in Brooklyn, received her MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art in 2021 and held a solo exhibition at VillageOneArt in 2022.
Yunfei Ren, “ Latitude Unknown ”
Jonathan Carver Moore
Through May 31
Emerging Chinese artist Yunfei Ren uses his vibrant paintings to delve into the themes of global migration and its lasting effects. His works feature expansive color fields and fluid ink marks, capturing the natural experiences of migrants. For example, in Scorched Into Memory (2025), rich purples and yellows create an emotional landscape where flame-like shapes resonate across the canvas, hinting at warmth or danger.
“ Latitude Unknown ” marks Ren’s debut solo exhibition with Jonathan Carver Moore. He has previously shown at the de Young Museum and Stanford Art Gallery, and completed his MFA at Stanford University in 2024.
Calvin Kim, “ Departure Before Arrival ”
Harper’s
Through June 14
Calvin Kim creates paintings that reflect moments of transition—thresholds and climactic instants. His exhibition “ Departure Before Arrival ” at Harper’s showcases luminous works characterized by surreal imagery and soft gradients. In Keeping (2025), a yellow flower is delicately held between two large thumbs against a vivid sky. In The urgency of feeling (in the morning there is meaning) (2025), a paper airplane is frozen mid-flight, symbolizing the fleeting nature of moments.
Born in Los Angeles in 1992, Kim earned his MFA from Columbia University in 2023, marking his first solo show with Harper’s. His inaugural solo exhibition in New York was presented by Situations in 2024.
Shuto Okayasu, “ Okku/Beyond the Light ”
PLATO Gallery
Through May 11
Shuto Okayasu’s paintings reflect the essence of New York life, showcasing familiar neighborhood scenes such as bodegas and chess games in the park. However, there’s a hint of magic in his work, revealing an optimistic perspective. His piece New Dream Land (2025) captures the vibrancy of the city. In another piece, Love is Okku (2025), he presents himself and his wife in a lush landscape, surrounded by modern technology, suggesting that love is both eternal and part of everyday life.
Okayasu trained with renowned Japanese contemporary artists Takashi Murakami and Tomokazu Matsuyama. His works have been shown in New York and internationally, including a group exhibition of Japanese artists at Tang Contemporary Art in Hong Kong in 2024.
Noormah Jamal, “ Meena / Veena ”
Rajiv Menon Contemporary
Through May 11
In her exhibition “ Meena / Veena,” Pakistani artist Noormah Jamal reflects on her childhood memories of Peshawar, known as the ‘city of flowers.’ Through a whimsical lens, she creates ceramics, paintings, and works on paper that foster dialogue between individual experiences and collective memories. Her figurative paintings, influenced by Mughal miniature art and Pashtun folklore, evoke deeply emotional scenes, such as Zarbaba (2025), depicting a woman against a mountain backdrop, while her ceramics playfully explore identity and nature.
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