Lim Dain (b.1989) studied Painting at Kyung Hee University and received her M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute in the United States. Her practice explores the meaning of everyday spaces and the idea of “home” as a place of refuge, shaped through memories formed by a life of constant departure and return. Through drawing and layered fields of color, she painterly reconstructs the aura of remembered spaces, delicately revealing traces of identity and lived experience where familiarity and unfamiliarity intersect. Built through repetitive accumulations of color and time, her works move beyond the representation of physical space, evoking an inner landscape of comfort and belonging that resides within each individual.

"Objecthood" is a concept that emerged from minimalism, often translated as "objecthood" or "materiality." It aims to strip objects of unnecessary elements, focusing on the essence of the object and the inherent properties of the material, to present works that are non-imitative and non-representational.

Based in Busan, Objecthood Gallery seeks to introduce the artistic worlds of emerging domestic and international artists who understand and interpret this pure concept of objecthood. The gallery also serves as a new platform to offer moments of relaxation and leisure in our modern lives.


OBJECTHOOD

Window into infinite 4

Hyuck Jin Oh (b.1997) is a rising Korean artist whose work delves into the emotional complexity of the human experience. His distinctive approach to mixed media combines different materials with traditional pigments, creating textured, layered compositions that convey the emotional depth and warmth of life’s spectrum. Oh's art explores themes of healing, transformation, and inner balance, reflecting both the turmoil and tranquility that shape the human condition. Through his work, he captures moments of emotional struggle while offering a sense of peace—emphasizing that even in times of hardship, there is potential for personal growth and renewal.

In addition to his fine art practice, Oh actively collaborates with the music and media industries, contributing his visual work to album covers, films, and dramas. This interdisciplinary approach expands his creative reach, deepening his exploration of emotional landscapes. His exhibition in Bangkok marked an important step in his growing international presence, further establishing his unique voice in the global art scene. Through his art, Oh invites viewers to reflect on their own emotional journeys, offering a message of hope and transformation—that by confronting and overcoming adversity, one can make positive memories shine even brighter.

Step toward the Light

"Summer Reminiscence" is an art experiment whose theme is a discussion of the increasing phenomena of online communication that has no hesitation about exposing one's everyday life or personal secrets. The artist conveys a message on human relationships using broadened social networks in the 21st century. The artist's unique realistic art, expressed in soft and bright colors like a camera filter had been applied, is reminiscent of a social network image that depicts an ordinary, but edited daily existence to show off. Through this way of working, the artist offers time to contemplate the modern individual's isolation resulting from virtual human ties.

Artue is dedicated to bringing the vibrant essence of art to the world stage, presenting a curated selection of works by talented artists who embody dynamic contemporary scenes. By creating a platform for these artists, we foster connections among galleries, collectors, and art enthusiasts, offering an immersive experience that transcends geographical boundaries. Discover the captivating world of contemporary art through Artue and unlock unparalleled opportunities for growth, exposure, and success. Join us in celebrating the diverse and remarkable contributions of artists to the global art community.


Artue - Korea

Summer Reminiscence

“Crying Bird” is a figurative painting. The emotions of the surviving bird, which laments the loss of the departed mate, and the viewpoint of the world watching it coexist in work. The artist creates a narrative of conflicting feelings within the canvas using a contemporary interpretation of Oriental painting, including flowers blooming and falling, a cat playing, a dead bird, and a bird weeping. The artist's belief that everyday life is nonsense is revealed by the contrast between the unassumingly beautiful landscape and painful emotions.

Crying bird

In the planning stage of my work, I use oil clay to develop a range of different models. Through the process of cutting and attaching the clay, I explore sculptural elements discovered in the material qualities of the medium itself. By constructing structure through planes and lines, I seek to incorporate into the work the unintended elements, irregular surfaces, and organic curves that emerge in the process of carving wood.

Since its establishment, Gallery Kabinett has aimed to play a pivotal role in managing and establishing promising artists, both domestically and internationally. Through strategic institutional introductions and comprehensive artist development programs, we seek to explore the various possibilities of visual arts by close collaboration with other industries.

We strive to enhance the competitiveness of Korean art and align it with global standards, all while showcasing Korean artistic elements to ultimately exert significant global influence.

Gallery Kabinett

Bookshelf

Notice Board

"Fresh Breeze" is a brush holder from the National Museum of Korea, reimagined to reflect the deep beauty of traditional ceramics. In this piece, Heo Seung-hee highlights the intricate craftsmanship and symbolism of Joseon-era stationery, featuring dynamic patterns of dragons and clouds to express both intensity and harmony. Through this brush holder, the artist brings forth the refined artistry and symbolic value of cultural heritage from a contemporary perspective, allowing viewers to rediscover the distinctive charm of Korean tradition. "Fresh Breeze" represents a harmonious blend of tradition and modernity, imparting an enduring sense of calm and moments of deep contemplation.

Obscura is a Seoul-based art gallery that first founded in 2015, then as SPACE IKKI, located in Seoungbuk-dong area. The name of the gallery derives from the Latin phrase camera obscura, meaning “dark room,” which refers to the first optical device used as a painting-aid, whereby an image is projected through a hole onto its opposite wall in a darkened room. 
​Obscura aims to make contemporary art accessible to a wide range of audience and provide various artistic and cultural contexts for interdisciplinary efforts, by emphasizing performative elements of curatorial practice and exhibition making. With keen eyes on sophisticated work by artists with solid and idiosyncratic practice, Obscura has been supporting and promoting contemporary artists in the fields of painting, installation, photography and new media.

Obscura

Fresh Breeze

Divided by a window, the space is split into interior and exterior, with the landscape beyond the window holding memories of the past and the time of a life already lived. The snow outside the window and the act of erasing suggest the passage of time after an event and memories that gradually fade, while the interior space represents the present and an inner world. The composition of looking out the window reflects a gaze that looks back on the past from the position of the present, and the sphere and the staircase within the image function as symbolic elements that suggest the present existence, the time of life, and the process of living.

CDA is a gallery stands for ‘Creative’, ‘Discovery’, and ‘Appreciation’. The gallery mainly presents creative activities in various fields of contemporary visual arts in the form of exhibitions. CDA exhibition mainly focuses on paintings but subjects to all kinds of genres and mediums such as sculpture, prints, photography, animation, and video. The form of the exhibitions is also balanced, with a mix of solo and group exhibitions, as well as art fairs and collaborative projects. We sincerely hope that our activities will serve as a spark for the realization of meaningful projects for creators(artists) and an opportunity for audiences to expand their inspiration and collecting.

Ruminating (반추)

In DuRi Baek’s paintings, yellow symbolizes light, while green represents shadow. With only these two colors, the artist weaves narratives of human life onto the canvas. DuRi Baek places humans and plants, nature itself, side by side, regarding them with equal value. Whether it is a small potted plant by the window or a towering tree in a dense forest, all plants, to her, live in essentially the same way: through light, and the space it reaches. Light and shadow. She believes these two elements are enough, for now, to express how we live. For the artist, shadow is not the absence of light but its trace, its counterpart, and its evidence. The two coexist. She observes how plants twist their bodies toward the light, stretch their branches, and grow even while wounded. She sees in them a reflection of human life. In her paintings, shadows are not mere darkness but the marks of struggle, of motion, of the will to live. That is why her works are quiet yet unyielding, simple yet deeply resonant.

In Korean, there is the word “byeot-nwi” (볕뉘), and in Japanese, “komorebi” (こもれび), both describing sunlight filtering through the gaps and seeping gently even into shaded places. These words can also evoke the warmth of sunshine that reaches into the shadows, or the shadow of sunlight itself. They may be the closest linguistic reflections of DuRi Baek’s work. She paints the byeot-nwi, the sunlight that slips through leaves.

지향 Toward 26

Gallery Belle Vie takes its name from the French phrase La Belle Vie, meaning “the beautiful life.”

Beyond its literal translation, Belle Vie embodies a way of living grounded in warmth, generosity, and a sense of grace in everyday moments.

Established in Seoul in January 2020, Gallery Belle Vie held its first exhibition in September 2021, and has since presented a series of exhibitions that naturally weave contemporary art into life and space. By curating a dynamic range of exhibitions each year, the gallery seeks to engage with the current moment of contemporary art while discovering and highlighting new perspectives from artists both in Korea and abroad.

We believe that when art dissolves the boundary between daily life and personal space, life expands beyond routine and opens into an intimate realm of perception. Gallery Belle Vie aims to be a companion in that journey—guiding viewers to discover their own aesthetic language and to broaden the horizons of their inner world.

Gallery Belle Vie

uncomfortable harmony#2

Dream Journey Landscape (臥遊⼭⽔) ‒
Guardian Tiger (家守虎圖)

Dream Journey Landscape (臥遊⼭⽔) ‒ Guardian Tiger (家守虎圖)

With You (feat. On the Way to the Bean Field #2602), 48 x 30cm

With You (feat. On the Way to the Bean Field #2602)

Scenes

Behind the curtain: Venus 001

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.


Golden Hands Friends (GHF) is an art agency and gallery founded in 2018 by art dealer couple WooSung Lim and Sunyoung Kim, who come from backgrounds in advertising and architecture. 

 As an art agency, GHF curates exhibitions and bridges artists’ intellectual property (IP) with businesses, events, social initiatives, and publishing projects. We also provide collection consulting for individuals and companies, artwork rentals, and art-based archiving services.

 At GHF Gallery in Gye-dong, we support artists through curated exhibitions and aim to foster a culture where art can be appreciated and collected by everyone. 
 Our mission is to make artwork more accessible and to contribute to a vibrant art market.

We believe that through art, everyone can become good friends. 
In the spirit of our name, Golden Hands—meaning “hands that save not only myself, but also those around me”—we hope the work we do lives up to what we stand for.

Golden hands friends

Moon Gazing

The Infill series covers structures composed of various colors with an opaque white membrane, creating surfaces through which light subtly permeates from within. The artist explores not only the front of the canvas but also its sides and back, as well as the relationship between fabric and frame, reconstructing the very structure of painting itself. The white membrane replaces the traditional canvas fabric, while internal objects are positioned between the frame and the surface, forming a new pictorial space.

Across the transformed canvas, planes, lines, and masses overlap and intersect, generating a three-dimensional flow within the image and evoking forms that appear or disappear depending on the viewer’s perspective. Real light and shadow operate together, expanding painting beyond a fixed plane into an experience unfolding in space.

INFILL

Qwaya is an artist who expands personal records into painting, drawing from moments of silence and reflection that pass through the night. While grounded in a deeply realistic sensibility, the work simultaneously constructs an emotional landscape distanced from reality. Fragments of everyday life are subjectively documented, reinterpreted, and transformed into evolving images on the canvas.
The artist’s vision of an ideal state is embedded throughout the work. In contrast to a fast-paced and solitary reality, the scenes depict a quiet, suspended time where figures and still life coexist yet remain subtly disconnected. Despite the use of vivid and luminous colors, a subdued darkness lingers, while the ambiguous, unforced expressions of the figures suggest a state of natural authenticity.
Through these compositions, Qwaya invites viewers to reflect on their own “today” and reconsider the rhythms of daily life, hoping that each narrative unfolds differently within individual experiences.

Staring Blankly at the Birds on the Power Lines

SoYeong Kim has been constructing illusionary images through an expressive painterly style that maximizes the effects of light. In her work, darkness deepens in response to illumination, while the gaze emerges with heightened clarity. The areas of light, rendered as empty spaces within the composition, possess a translucent, screen-like texture—prompting viewers to reconsider the very nature of the image.
By sensitively capturing the boundary between the image projected onto fragmented elements and the image generated by light itself, Kim seeks to illuminate the essence of visual experience and the moment an image comes into being.


프레임 Frame

Dain Lim captures the feeling of rest through sensory experiences in peaceful spaces, focusing on her "Window" series.

Goyona Jung is interested in the contemporary demand for exposure on social networks and image formation in human relationships via the Internet. She attempted to collaborate with media and painting after graduating from Hongik University with a degree in Painting. She worked in Korea as “Live Cam Painting”, which offers not only personal daily memories but also other people's daily lives in real time with the audience, and she has expanded her activities abroad to include a number of exhibitions. Through her works, the artist conveys a message about the issues of modern society and raises questions about the gap between modern people's loneliness and their edited daily lives. 

Yerang Hwang depicts the contradiction and compassion of the familiar world. After receiving a master's degree in Korean painting from Sejong University, she broke down the boundary between western and oriental paintings, and reinterpreted oriental artworks from her own perspective. Concerned with the categories and medium of Korean painting, the artist experiments with several display approaches. Through the appearance of contradictory materials, visitors are prompted to consider the two opposing feelings, and the artist's vision of the world is depicted through the capture of everyday life. 

Yun Taein’s practice can be understood as an exploration of how soft and fluid materiality shifts into the language of structure and form. Taking materials such as clay and sponge—substances that respond sensitively to external pressure and contact—as her point of departure, the artist attends closely to the moments in which the movement of the hand, the resistance of the material, and the incidental traces produced in the making process become layered and accumulated. Impressions, curves, smudges, and tears left on the surface are not treated merely as by-products of process, but as formative clues that anticipate the structure of the work to come. In particular, organic forms that emerge in a pliable state are later transferred into materials of opposing character through processes such as metal casting or wood carving, allowing the traces of softness to become newly embedded within hard and solid matter. In this way, Yoon Taein’s work delicately reveals the moment in which one materiality is translated into another, traversing sensation and structure, pliancy and solidity, accident and construction. While her furniture and objects reference functional forms, they do not remain confined to the realm of utility; instead, holding within them the residue of sensation and the memory of material, they invite reflection on the sculptural potential inherent in softness.

For Moonhee Cho, the series of photographic works are both a process and a result of pusing ‘resemble’. ‘Resemble’ creates a gap skimmed from reality, making one revisit the place glimpsed at first sight. The landscape that was once passed by reveals a dramatic presence in a form that was never reached, even in places that were numb, different from the afterimage left in the mind. Following the image in the landscape, she visualizes the conflict stemming from ‘resemblance’.

Ed. 1/3, 3AP

Seong Hee Huh(b.1984) expresses the aesthetics of Korea through the pictorial verification of our cultural heritage. Recently gaining much attention for her "Inkstone(Yeonjuk)" series, she presents paintings that capture the beauty of Joseon white porcelain. She uses cultural artifacts from various museums in Korea and abroad as her subjects, with her works held in collections such as IBK and Shinhan Card. Currently, she also serves as a senior researcher at the Seoul National University Art Conservation Research Center, combining her artistic practice with cultural heritage research.

Park Younghwan has sustained a painting practice grounded in the tradition of East Asian landscape painting, combining imagination with architectural composition. Through variations of ink on hanji including cheongmeok (bluish ink) and dameok (dense, fully-loaded ink) he lends subtle chromatic strata to black-and-white surfaces, juxtaposing nature and geometric form, figures and symbols, within a single scene. Perfect black spheres, Western buildings in modern styles, tangled stands of trees, and figures recalled from memory all find their place on the picture plane, where a fictive order and the artist’s personal temporality are realised simultaneously within the landscape.
The sphere (gu), the artist’s basic unit, appears as the most emblematic object in the work, distributed across the surface in differing sizes and gradations of ink as though tracing the arc of elapsed time. It becomes, at once, the artist himself present in the many times and spaces of a life’s journey and the record of a process moving toward the most ideal form of living to which he aspires.

My faint light bent in a wavering arc. Swaying with unease and fragility, I barely traced a dim glimmer. I moved toward the light—clear in aim, but lost in direction. I gradually developed a sense for detecting and escaping the abyss of despair and the weight of its repeating patterns. Each crisis sharpened my acuity. I responded finely, moved in subtle steps. What may seem like reckless intuition was swift judgment, honed by time. The hours carved into my heart fed my intuition, nurtured my sensitivity. I evolved, bracing for the next trial. Sensitivity became my chosen trait— a way to survive, a skill to catch even the faintest light. I twisted, reached, and stretched as far as I could. Through the ground, into the sky. I bask in everything. /Text. DuRi Baek

Tae Woo reinterprets traditional Korean landscape painting through a contemporary sensibility, grounding his practice in wayu (臥遊)—“traveling while lying down”—to paint landscapes of memory and imagination rather than literal scenery.

His recurring motif, Gasuho (家守虎)—a “home-guarding tiger”—carries a Korean folk-painting (minhwa) spirit, echoing the folk-inflected tiger imagery recently popularized in Netflix’s animated film KPop Demon Hunters. Birds and children symbolize family and intimacy, reflecting on ways of living and the warmth of relationships.

He gained public recognition after winning KBS2’s No Money No Art (2022), presented HOHO Garden at Gana Art Park Museum (2025), and has released NFT drops via Upbit.

Ed. 2/3, 3AP

Wonmi Seo expresses anxiety and trauma based on autobiographical experiences, societal experiences, and psychological landscapes through the language of painting. She graduated from Sungkyunkwan University and currently resides in Seoul, where she engages with audiences through various exhibitions of her work. The artist combines and deconstructs common materials and symbols, concealing and reinterpreting the ordinary. With this process, her works represent the unrestrained desires of humans today, a collection of characters with shattered and chaotic lifestyles, and the trauma linked with death in Korean history. She believes that viewers of her works will experience the separation of subject and object of the self and will be able to focus on the works and project themselves into them.

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.

Hong Jung-Ouk is a Seoul-based artist and Associate Professor of Painting at Hong-ik University. Working at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and installation, his practice persistently interrogates the ontological conditions of the painted surface—questioning why a canvas must always be rectangular, and why it must hang on a wall.

Rather than abandoning painting for three-dimensional work, Hong expands its logic outward: frames become polygons and circles, cloth is removed to expose open structures, and glass, acrylic, wire, and light are combined to create works that occupy the threshold between painting and site-specific installation. His ongoing series—INFILL, cacophony, ENTITY, and ulterior—reflect what he calls "evolution": each work finding its most optimized form through iterative material and spatial experiment.

Hong holds a Ph.D. in Technology Art from Chung-Ang University, an M.F.A. from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (London), and degrees from Hong-ik University, Seoul.

Qwaya is an artist who has built a distinct painterly world rooted in quiet nocturnal reflection and personal records. For him, night is a time to sort through the day and revisit memories—a space for contemplation that remains grounded in reality yet gently distanced from it. This sensibility appears on the canvas, where figures and still lifes coexist with a subtle sense of separation.

Though he employs bright and vivid colors, a quiet darkness and stillness permeate his work. His figures bear calm, ambiguous expressions, which he considers the most natural state. While his work reflects a longing for an ideal, it also closely resonates with the realities of contemporary life.

SoYeong Kim reflects on urban life through photos taken in daily life, capturing fleeting moments that evoke a sense of both illusion and emptiness. Her work is characterized by creating illusionary scenes by adding painterly ambiguity to real landscapes. She paints by repeatedly layering vertical strokes of acrylic paint on traditional Korean paper (Jangji). The unique textures created from the combination of Jangji and acrylic form the depth and richness of her works. The warm texture of Jangji contrasts with the cold, artificial texture of acrylic, and through the brushstrokes, these elements merge to create a dualistic atmosphere in her compositions.