Cho Youngnam is a celebrated singer, television personality, and contemporary artist who has built a distinctive visual language that bridges popular culture and fine art. By reinterpreting the traditional Korean card game hwatu through the lens of pop art, he transforms a simple pastime into a cultural symbol and collective memory that transcends generations. His works dissolve the boundaries between tradition and modernity, mass culture and high art, humor and satire—expanding the aesthetic possibilities of contemporary art.

Lee Mina is an artist who closely observes the instincts and habits of animals and plants, granting narrative to their inherent characteristics and shaping the wonder of living beings through a visual language. The subjects in her paintings, shaped by attentive observation, acquire distinct personalities and temperaments, taking their place as if they were individual presences. Through subtle expressions, gestures, and scenes of relationship that she carefully captures, she composes painterly structures that evoke sensations beyond the visible world.

Working primarily in painting while also engaging sculpture, installation, and picture books, her practice moves fluidly across media. Throughout her work, the pure realm of animals and plants intersects with an unknown world that humanity has yet to reach. Her works invite viewers to see familiar beings anew and to imagine the mystery and essential innocence of life.

In the field of picture books, Lee Mina has been recognized by first-generation Korean picture book artist Jaesoo Ryu and Japanese artist Seizo Tashima. She has published five picture books. Her picture books convey layered reflection and symbolism within concise narratives, achieving both visual density and emotional resonance.

It expresses the emotions of love and longing—too profound to be fully captured by language—through a fusion of visual and auditory art.

During this time he worked under filmmakers Paul Sharits and Hollis Frampton who introduced him to structural filmmaking and Sergei Eisenstein’s films. In 1974, while at Buffalo, he co-founded, with Charles Clough, the exhibition space Hallwalls, organizing shows with Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Lynda Benglis, Robert Irwin, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Serra, and establishing relationships that proved seminal to his development. It was at this time that his life-long friendship with Cindy Sherman began. Longo is best known for Men in the Cities, his critically acclaimed, larger-than-life, photorealistic drawings of contorted figures, done from 1977 to 1983. Using charcoal, graphite and ink, this monochrome series depicting the reactive movements of businessmen and women in static suspension became icons of 1980s art. Longo has had retrospective exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunstverein, the Menil Collection in Houston and the Isetan Museum of Art in Tokyo, and his work has been exhibited in the Whitney Museum Biennial in New York, documenta in Kassel and the Venice Biennial, among others. He is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum, NY; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Menil Collection, Houston, the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Tate Gallery, London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY among many others. He lives and works in New York.

Lee Kwang Ho is a representative figure in realism paintings. He takes daily subject matters and takes the reproduction of their forms into a unique language of his own. Although realism seems like quite a laborious task and sometimes compulsive as well, through the pictorial depiction of Lee Kwang Ho, we see the reconstructed reality fabricated by his intentions. Subjects that are expressed both vigorously and dramatically expose the desires of their subconscious, and also stimulates the tactility of those that behold them. In his wetland series, he experiments with techniques like scratching and tapping on the canvas. Upon closer inspection, the depicted subjects dissolve, leaving behind a layer of paint with precise brushstrokes and meticulous knife work, which emphasizes the exploration of the fundamental question of painting - the act of painting itself.
Lee has held solo exhibitions in various venues, including Johyun Gallery, Busan; Kukje Gallery, Seoul; and Chang dong Studio Gallery, Seoul; and has participated in group exhibitions at Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul; Busan Museum of Art, Busan; Gana Art Center, Seoul; and Saatchi Gallery, London. His works are included in prestigious collections such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul; the Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Ansan and the Jeju Museum of Art.


JHU’s works confront the fragility and mutability of form, employing organic and fluid mediums to create abstract narratives that resonate with existential vulnerability. Through his pieces, he reflects on the impermanence of the human condition, inviting viewers to consider the moments when identity feels unfamiliar and fragmented.

Kwon, Soon-young (b. 1975) majored in Oriental Painting in Dankook University (B.F.A) and Hongik University (M.F.A). She held a number of solo exhibitions including The Land of Ghosts (The SoSo, 2023), A Journey of tears (Gallery SoSo, 2017), the milk of sorrow (Gallery FACTORY, 2014), Flashback (Kwanhoon gallery, 2007), and participated in group exhibitions such as The SoSo special (The SoSo, 2022), CHILDREN CROSSING THE NIGHT (Seoul National University Museum of Art, 2022), The Adventures of Korean Painting: I Will Go Away All by Myself (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Cheongju, 2019), STILL ACTS (Art Sonje Center, 2016), Journey to a fluid Island (Kumho Museum of Art, 2016). Selected for the grant program of Korea Arts Management Service Center, Kwon has been a special artist representing Gallery SoSo since 2022.  
Kwon, Soon-young has been creating her own world of cruel fairy tales with characters representing young beings in agony. (···) Kwon’s work is not about the fantasy itself, which evaporates in an instant, but instead focuses on innocent characters who console the harsh reality, those who await it even though it will only end in vain. Their naïve wishes, endlessly delayed and never coming true in reality, evolve into more powerful fantasies in the artist’s imagination, and with it, the pain in real life gets worse with their ever-growing anticipation. Because the fantasy created by Kwon is inseparable from reality, the more beautiful and gloomy it is, the more pitiful it gets. – excerpted from Eunju Lee, “Fantasy of sympathy and console”

Johannes Nagel studied ceramics at the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein, Halle, Germany. Deliberately questioning the widely accepted status of pottery as a functional, domestic and decorative craft, Nagel turns to clay as the privileged arena for his formal and conceptual explorations, rehearsing, through an eclectic array of vessels, the timeless debate of form vs. function, control vs. spontaneity, rigour vs. improvisation. 

Natalie Sasi Organ examines fragmented historiographies, creating artificial yet familiar scenes of composite memories and territories. Investigating the liminalities of her own biracial experience, Sasi Organ confronts the personal and cultural tensions of migration, displacement, and assimilation. Her practice, defined by continuous dualities and dichotomies, mirrors the binary thinking of cultural hybridity, also tracing the artist’s personal search for living in the in-between. Drawing from settings close to her heritage, Sasi Organ builds a composite archive of visual evidence, often crossing generations and geographies. She transforms mundane objects and domestic scenes into testimonies of transitory belonging, fostering unforeseen interactions with intimate subject matter. Forming a practice of recollection and recontextualisation, Sasi Organ highlights the ephemeral and overlooked, challenging the subjective ambiguities of identity and memory.

Yoonhee Na, a graduate of the Department of Comics and Animation at Sejong University, has been actively publishing since 2014 to the present. She has worked on serials such as <Blind Garden>, <This Magical Moment>, <Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid>, and <A Heartfelt Andante> and was awarded the Presidential Award at the Korea Content Awards in 2021.

oo Young Choi(b.1993, Korea) works from a place of deep agony over the notion that ideas branching out from the root of the “I” must inevitably exist in the context of relationships with the other. Choi expresses this idea as a faceless “black dot,” a character that represents the artist’s thoughts — along with those of many others in modern society. Containing both the stability of belonging that comes from a uniting, intertwining crowd as well as the unavoidable sense of isolation that occurs in any relationship, the duality of the “black dot” is sure to strike a chord with anyone living in the present era. Individual yet multiple, unfamiliar yet comforting, the “black dot” speaks to us all.

Takuya Kamioka naturally began his journey in art under the influence of his grandfather and father, who were both painters and illustrators. However, the most decisive moment in his artistic journey was his childhood exposure to hip-hop music and street graffiti. This experience ignited a significant cultural and artistic inspiration in him, and to this day, street culture remains deeply rooted in his work. He focuses on capturing the beauty of harmony and contrast created by light and reflections in everyday landscapes, rather than symbolic subjects. He combines his own photography with imaginative elements to create dreamlike atmospheres in his paintings. He has consistently collaborated with companies and brands such as REEBOK, ADIDAS, TORIBA COFFEE, and DOUTOR, as well as musicians like FUJII KAZE, AWICH, ANARCHY, KOHH, and KANDYTOWN.

Since the debut of her acclaimed Sealed Smile series in 2008, Kim Jihee has garnered widespread attention for her unique approach—blending traditional East Asian painting techniques with contemporary portraiture. Her works, known for their vibrant aesthetics and emotionally resonant narratives, have earned both critical acclaim and broad public appeal. She has participated in over 400 exhibitions at major galleries and museums across Seoul, New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Miami, London, Cologne, Jakarta, Tokyo, Osaka, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, and Dubai.

Kim Jihee has held prominent solo exhibitions at institutions such as Gana Art Sounds and Gana Forum Space in Seoul. In 2024, she was invited for a blockbuster solo exhibition at China’s K11 Art Museum—led by Adrian Cheng, one of the world’s top 100 super collectors—and became the first Korean artist to collaborate with Discovery Park in Hong Kong. Her solo exhibition at Breeze Nanshan’s 333 Gallery in Taiwan further solidified her strong presence in the Chinese-speaking art world.

Her collectors include a notable list of global elites: Sabrina Ho (daughter of the late Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho), H.H. Sheikh Saud bin Sultan Al Qasimi of Sharjah, UAE, and other high-profile international art patrons. She is frequently referred to as “the artist loved by the super-rich.”
Beyond the gallery context, Kim Jihee actively engages in cultural collaborations. She participated in collaboration with Royal Salute 55 Years Old as well as Seoul My Soul in Dubai, a drawing performance exhibition co-hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which attracted over 4,000 viewers. Her past brand collaborations include SK Telecom, LG Eletronics Objet Refrigerator, Stonehenge, Girls’ Generation, and Chinese cosmetics brand LIMI. Her work Sealed Smile was selected as the cover image for the 2025 high school art textbook in South Korea.

As a leading figure in contemporary Korean art, Kim Jihee continues to expand her global influence, establishing herself as a distinctive voice in cities around the world.

Daniel Wheedong Kim uses the metaphor of 'GHOST' to describe contemporary images that are endlessly replicated across mediums. Embracing 'Hyper-Ghostism,' he creates paintings reflecting on the role of art in an era where reality and existence are increasingly blurred.

Ursula Palla was born 1961 and grew up in Chur, today she lives and works in Zürich. In her work she interlinks video and room sculptures and works with sensitive materials such as moulded sugar, coal dust or snow. The fragility of nature and wild life is the focus in many works. On a first level an enchanting aesthetic make these accessible. Yet all works are based on comprehensive research, and only its knowledge completely reveals the depth and urgency of the work. The video and room installations by Ursula Palla are poetic and at the same time show up voids that often leave behind a stale feeling and remind us of our responsibility towards nature and environment. This makes the artist’s work highly topical.
While in Ursula Pallas’ early work the accent was on the human being as a figure between appearance and disappearance, after 2000 the plant and animal world came into focus as motifs. The artificiality of nature crystallises ever more clearly as the central theme of the multimedia oeuvre.


Im Jaehyoung collects images of personal and social loss and explores them in various ways, linking the concept of 'disappearance' with the act of painting. Through his paintings, he creates a unique visual distance, addressing the psychological and ethical distances associated with absence.

b. 1980, Montalban, Philippines

At the heart of Rodel Tapaya’s work is his ongoing amalgamation of folk narrative and contemporary reality within the framework of memory and history. Utilizing a range of media - from large acrylic on canvasses to the exploration of under-glass painting, traditional crafts, diorama, and drawing - Tapaya filters his observations of the world through folktales and pre-colonial historical research,  creating whimsical montages of his characters.

Selected solo exhibitions include: “Random Numbers”, Tang Contemporary Art (Hong Kong SAR, China,2021); “Myths and Truths”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2018); “Urban Labyrinth”, Ayala Museum, Manila (Philippines, 2018); “Rodel Tapaya: New Art from the Philippines”, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (Australia, 2017); “Rodel Tapaya”, Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen (Germany, 2016). Selected group exhibitions include: “Fragment with Dusty Light” Tang Contemporary Art, Seoul (Korea, 2022);  “Memory, Playfulness, and Stream of Consciousness”, Tang Contemporary Art (Hong Kong SAR, China, 2022); “Falling”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2022); Heavenly Bodies in the South, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen (China, 2020); “Far Away So Close!”, ARNDT Agency, Berlin (Germany, 2019).

His work is held in the following museum and institutional collections: Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Australia, Tokyo Mori Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Philippines Bencab Museum, Philippines Ateneo Art Gallery, Philippines Pinto Art Museum, Central Bank of the Philippines. Rodel Tapaya was awarded the coveted Top Prize in the Nokia Art Awards, which allowed him to pursue intensive drawing and painting courses at Parsons School of Design in New York and the University of Helsinki in Finland. In 2011, he won a landmark achievement for a Filipino artist by winning the Signature Art Prize given by the Asia-Pacific Breweries Foundation and the Singapore Art Museum. He was also among the Thirteen Artists Awardee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2012. 

I paint beings that seem to carry the presence of loneliness. These are often things or creatures that feel overlooked—lost items, small animals, confined beings, objects tucked away in corners. They’re nothing extraordinary: common things anyone might own or pass by without much notice. But if you look closely, you might catch a glimpse of these quiet presences that exist between the steps of everyday life. They’re often found just off to the side of the path, missing a part of themselves, or left behind without a clear purpose.

Sometimes, in the middle of ordinary life, I feel like I’ve become something “other.” I’ve named this feeling becoming a fake human. It’s a sensation that arises when I’m walking down a street, speaking with someone, or standing among a group of people—moments when I suddenly hesitate to connect, sensing that I’m not quite the same. In those moments, I imagine myself as someone nearly human but slightly off, like a flawed copy—resembling a person, yet missing something essential.

I began drawing fragments of "people" through other beings because I believe the things shaped by humans—or whose lives have been altered through human presence—end up resembling us in subtle ways. Whether consciously created objects or living things unconsciously affected by human behavior, these entities are part of the social world we inhabit. And when they’re no longer just someone’s possession, but exist in their own right, they begin to carry a deeper sense of meaning. Their anonymity—the fact that we don’t know where they came from or where they’re going—gives them a kind of quiet, haunting weight.

In my paintings, these figures often share similar appearances. Like the strangers we pass on the street whose faces we never fully see, they fade from memory even as they surround us. I once saw a nearly new doll abandoned on the sidewalk. On another day, I passed an old man drawing on the street in the freezing winter. These are the kinds of moments I try to gather—brief scenes that make you pause for a second and look. Through my work, I want to depict the quiet, slightly unbalanced figures of ordinary people—people who, for just a moment, come into view.

Disorn Duangdao (lives and works in Kanchanaburi, Thailand) focuses his interest on the situations that arise from his surroundings, including the use of raw materials derived from the experience of overlapping and parallel contexts of ambiguity and reality. His practice involves a combination of constructing sets of symbolic language within objects and finding meaning within twisted structures. Disorn’s aesthetic opens up a diverse dialogue ranging from nature, society, and politics, to history, all under the realm of an exchange area for reform and reconstruction.

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