Changyeol Gu translates the sensorial language of plants—acquired through growing up near lush fields and overgrown meadows—into a painterly language of his own. Observing how natural forms continually shift their appearance through colour and shape, the artist identifies mechanisms of seduction devised for reproduction and systems of protection evolved for survival. These elements are perceived not merely as formal characteristics of nature, but as autonomous languages in themselves.

By radically enlarging or intensifying the structures through which plants communicate and endure—such as the arrangement of pistils and stamens, the colours and scents that attract pollinators, and the thorns and hairs evolved for defence—the artist summons onto the canvas the distinctive wonder of what he terms “speaking plants.”

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

Gathering toward dispersal

Some landscapes touch the body before they are understood. Standing before Seonghwa Hong’s paintings is like stepping into the stillness of a hushed dawn.
As Merleau-Ponty suggested, seeing is not a mere act of analysis but a way of being intertwined with the world. Figures adopt the pulse of plants as their breath and the patterns of leaves as their skin. By emptying the self rather than imposing artificial definitions onto the raw linen, Hong allows her subjects to enter the space on their own terms. Through the patient accumulation of layered color, the canvas gradually reaches a density that lifts itself toward a moment of quiet liberation.
Here, time suspends its horizontal flow and sinks into depth. Moving beyond artificial definitions, this exhibition becomes a serene first breath—inviting us to sense the true texture of existence, momentarily freed from the frantic pace of the world.


| Elevate Artists to the Center of Culture |
Since its opening in 2019, Gallery Collast has consistently presented a diverse and unique range of solo and curated exhibitions. The name "Collast" is a meaningful fusion of "Collaboration" and "Artist," reflecting our commitment to creating creative works that spark a new wave in contemporary art through deep partnership with artists.

Located in the vibrant and youthful district of Seongsu-dong, Seoul, we aim to introduce contemporary art to a broader public. Our mission is to facilitate multifaceted communication between artists and collectors, contributing to a virtuous cycle within the art market. Moving beyond the traditional "white cube" gallery format, we pursue a new gallery identity that rawly captures the artist's passion and energy.

As an open space for everyone, we prioritize interactive exhibitions over one-way displays and actively support bold, adventurous artistic endeavors. We respect the diverse currents of contemporary art and believe that natural dialogue and an intimate atmosphere between artists and visitors can dismantle the barriers to the art world.

Gallery Collast seeks new dimensions in contemporary art, moving forward with the conviction that freedom is the ultimate driver of innovation.

COLLAST

Serenity 38

Buwon develops paintings and art toys rooted in his long-standing interest in toys and street culture, centering on a rabbit character modeled after himself. Behind its charming appearance, the character embodies emotions from growth and uncertainty to humor and cynicism, reflecting the artist’s personal narratives. Moving fluidly between digital and analog, 2D and 3D, he continues to expand his distinctive artistic universe through global brand collaborations and international exhibitions.

Gallery STAN is a contemporary art gallery based in Seoul, dedicated to presenting bold and thought-provoking works by emerging and established artists from Korea and beyond. Founded with a vision to serve as a dynamic platform for experimental narratives and cultural dialogues, the gallery is committed to fostering artistic practices that engage with the complexities of our time.

Through solo and group exhibitions, public programs, and interdisciplinary collaborations, Gallery STAN seeks to blur the boundaries between visual art, performance, design, and new media. The gallery places a strong emphasis on curatorial experimentation and social relevance, offering both local and international audiences a space to encounter new ideas and perspectives.

As an active player in the global art ecosystem, Gallery STAN also participates in major art fairs and collaborates with institutions, collectors, and curators to support the long-term growth of its artists. At the heart of its mission lies a belief in art’s ability to question, connect, and transform.

Gallery STAN

Testosterone 02

Kim Joo-hyun's current works represent a series of creative endeavors striving to exclude conventional drawing devices, such as vanishing points, which were habitually employed in the past. While the artist intervenes to generate images on the canvas, the work is completed by focusing solely on creating color, ensuring meaning and intention do not surface. Water-based acrylic paint is applied horizontally, allowed to settle and dry, or tilted to induce flow. Through this process, the canvas reveals a natural visual topography. The “stability derived from uncertainty” mentioned by artist Kim Joo-hyun does not resolve into form, stemming from an effort to constantly evade things defined and fixed by meaning. Since neither subject matter nor theme drives the image, the completed work evokes the artist's experienced synesthesia and fleeting moments.

Pageroom8 aims for an organic and infinite relationship between exhibitions and books. With the opening of a space in March 2021, special exhibitions are being held in earnest. The exhibition is largely composed of several series projects and special exhibitions, efficiently and intensively introducing the works of emerging and established artists.

PAGEROOM8

Red Depth

GALLERY IN, located in Yeonhui-dong, Seodaemun-gu, is a space dedicated to making Contemporary Art easily accessible and friendly to the public. We aim to introduce artists, both domestic and international, fostering communication with art lovers through various exhibitions. GALLERY IN annually showcases an exhibition featuring Japanese craft artists. We have plans to create various projects beyond crafts in the future.

GALLERY IN

Still Life on the Table-Cherry Cake

This work was composed while imagining a group of forms—possibly plants or animals—ascending a steep terrain. It emerged from a chain of reflections on the meanings embedded in the act of “climbing.”

While considering how one might endure the longest on sharply inclined ground, the artist arrived at the idea of ascent, ultimately realizing that all such methods are ways of efficiently resisting gravity. This line of thought naturally extends to a meditation on “standing,” connecting the work conceptually with the accompanying piece, ‘둥글납작하게 서 있는’.

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.

오르는 모습들 Ascending Forms

The forms depicted by artist Bac Jung-won seem to transcend mere observation, as if they were penetrating and dissolving into their very existence. It is as if one tunes into their self-awareness, accepting the sensation of time. Though oil paintings, the toned-down colors and watercolor-like silhouettes, rendered with relatively high saturation and transparency, are positioned precisely where needed. They make us see the actual, moistly water-laden forest, the grapevine, and the waves crashing in the deep night. The artist's subjects are somewhat distant from those we associate with linear life cycles. Perhaps the simultaneous coexistence of transience and eternity felt within them represents a twisted sense of time—one that embraces even the clumsy death that no one can truly know unless experienced.

A Rainforest

“Translation does not repeat the original; it expands its possibilities.” by Walter Benjamin
This statement by Walter Benjamin describes precisely how Hwang Hyeyoung’s Nana’s Wonderland operates. Borrowing the structural framework of Alice in Wonderland, the artist brings it into her own pictorial universe, opening new imaginative possibilities.
At the center of the exhibition, the fairytale book and the paintings mirror one another, forming a “living story” that the viewer enters rather than reads page by page. Nana’s Wonderland is not a simple variation on a narrative; it is a process in which text and image build a world together. Nana’s journey becomes the first scene through which the artist reveals how her artistic world expands and reconstructs itself.

ALICES

The Light of Space Race series illuminates the individual within the historical current of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Initiated in the name of humanity’s great leap forward, the series explores the duality of light and shadow inherent in advanced technologies—achievements that were ultimately driven by political and military ambitions

Hippie Hannam is a gallery that moves beyond prevailing trends, working alongside artists who engage with the world through their own distinct sensibilities to create new and meaningful experiences. By revisiting familiar scenes and approaching them from alternative perspectives, the gallery explores the diverse possibilities of contemporary art.

Hippie Hannam seeks to foster an environment where artists and audiences meet organically, and where art becomes part of everyday perception. Through these encounters, the gallery aims to offer an open platform in which contemporary art can be experienced with ease, allowing each visitor to engage and reflect at their own pace.

Hippie Hannam Gallery

Light of space race 4

Through Lines of Sight, SPACE776 Seoul poses a question central to contemporary art: not simply what is depicted, but under what conditions one looks. Situated at the intersection of the visual history shaped by the modern invention of the automobile and contemporary painterly sensibilities, the exhibition quietly reveals the flows and rhythms that emerge as disparate lines of sight overlap within a shared space.

Space776 exhibits early to mid-career artists who work in a variety of mediums ranging from live multimedia performance art to traditional oil painting. The gallery accommodates artists from around the globe, taking their works to local and international art fairs such as Volta New York, Volta Basel, Art Miami, Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary, and Art Busan. 
Space776 was founded in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2013. In 2020, the gallery relocated to its current residence at 37-39 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Space776 also opened a location in Seoul, South Korea in 2020 in accordance with the gallery’s mission to promote the international exchange between local New York artists and the Korean artistic sphere. 

Space776

어떤 도시조각

“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.

아르투(Artue)는 동시대 예술 현장의 역동성을 자양분으로 삼은 역량 있는 예술가들의 작품을 엄선하여 생동감 넘치는 미술의 본질을 세계에 알리는 데 헌신하고 있습니다. 예술가들을 위한 플랫폼 구축은 갤러리, 컬렉터 및 미술 애호가들을 연결해 지리적, 물리적 경계를 넘어선 총체적 경험을 제공하려는 아투의 핵심 미션과 연결됩니다. 아투를 통해 매력적인 미술의 세계를 발견하고 그 어디에서도 만날 수 없는 기회를 경험해 보시기 바랍니다. 

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

Crying bird

This limited edition by Philippe Parreno is a unique object consisting of a custom-made plexiglass box, a special, clothbound edition of the Revue and its accompanying booklet and a double-sided print of Parreno’s Iceman (2020), 2023, in two stages.

Founded in 1926 by Christian Zervos at 14, rue du Dragon in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Cahiers d’Art encompasses a publishing house, a gallery, and a revue. The Cahiers d’Art Revue was entirely unique when it was introduced, and it still is: a revue of contemporary art defined by its combination of striking typography and layout, abundant photography, and juxtaposition of ancient and modern art.
Between the 1920s and the mid-1970s, Cahiers d’Art published ninety-seven issues of the Revue and more than fifty books on fine art and architecture, as well as the thirty-three volume catalogue raisonné of Pablo Picasso. After its acquisition and relaunch in 2012 by Staffan Ahrenberg, an editorial board comprised of Sam Keller, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Isabela Mora, and Staffan Ahrenberg was created. Cahiers d’Art has since published several new Revues and art books devoted to Ellsworth Kelly, Rosemarie Trockel, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Schütte, Gabriel Orozco, Joan Miró, Lucas Arruda, Ai Weiwei, Arthur Jafa, Frank Gehry, Christo, and others. From the 1920s till today, Cahiers d’Art has maintained a gallery, exhibiting the artists it publishes.
Cahiers d’Art continues to fulfill its mission to be the cultural bridge between the avant-garde of Picasso, Duchamp, and Le Corbusier, and the leading artists and architects of our time.

Cahiers d'Art

Philippe Parreno, Limited edition including original artwork

Passionate about prints, Lee Ufan had, for many years, the desire to succeed in creating an extremely long etching. He wanted to push horizontality to its limits. It was at Michael Woolworth’s studio that he was able to realize this dream. Confronting himself, with all his physical strength, to the hardness of the steel plates and the vastness of their length, he created two different works as two ways to explore an infinite trajectory. Together an artistic, physical and technical feat, these impressive etchings are the result of a very intense cooperation between the artist and the entire workshop team.

Untitled (II)

"Letters to Layer-3" is a piece from the artist's "Letters to Layer" series, demonstrating artist's philosophy of the painting. She collects images from her life and expresses them with colors and textures, like weaving with thread, using the features of painting that make it less difficult to disclose the process of building up layers than other mediums. She uses techniques like spraying, dripping, and applying paints thickly to build up layers in patterns like grids, checks, and waves. This creates a context where the layers interact, resulting in a remarkable pictorial space. With this layering, each layer has a supportive relationship with the other rather than a clear separation. The artist hopes viewers to find out the layers from the cues in the painting and experience a sense of time and depth while imagining a non-visible point.

Letters to Layer-3

The artwork explores the inner self and the ‘I’ that confronts itself. The painting resembles mediaeval cathedral stained glass and relates to the artist’s concept of humanitarian love. The artist discusses several types of love and offers a message of solace to the audience. The black background seems to symbolise the abyss, and the blue and red figures, which meet under the curves and seem to be in opposition, have blurred boundaries. Through the figures that constantly give courage and faith to themselves, the artist talks about how we look back at ourselves in modern society, where we are often exposed to the gaze of others. 

Belief

untitled

The Home series revisits the domestic landscape, imbued with the touch of family, through a quiet and warm gaze. Although the home may seem to remain always in the same place, the objects within it hold the passage of time and the movements of the body in subtle yet tangible ways.
Objects such as lights, sofas, blankets, and clocks appear throughout the works. The lingering warmth of a seat once occupied, the texture of a blanket often drawn close, or the expression of a clock that points to the same hour each day while passing through days that are never quite the same—these are the traces of everyday life that I seek to follow through these seemingly ordinary things.
This gaze does not remain only inside the house. The trees visible beyond the window and the landscape outside also continue into the work as though they were part of the home, or another kind of interior touching its edges. Rather than thinking of home as a space merely defined by walls, I want to translate into my work the idea that it may instead be the full range of sensations upon which I lean and dwell.
The persimmon tree, jujube tree, and camellia tree that I am currently working on are all part of the Home series.

home - 이불

The artist Lee Hee-myoung has been exploring a multifaceted perspective on the inner self using painting and installation works, with a focus on femininity and nature since her plant installation piece in 2006. She graduated from the Department of Painting and the Graduate School of Painting at Hongik University. She has held a total of 11 solo exhibitions, including one at the Zaha Museum of Art in 2019. Additionally, she has participated in around 50 group exhibitions, such as those at the Seoul Museum of Art (2007), Sungkok Museum of Art (2008), Soma Museum of Art (2018), and Zaha Museum of Art (2023). She endeavors to establish an internal connection seeking harmony between nature and the female body through diverse expressive techniques. Departing from a vertical mindset that seeks to dominate nature as a primitive world, Lee Hee-myoung advocates for a horizontal world that aligns femininity and nature. Through contemplation of nature and inner self, she creates reassembled works based on the combination of plants and the body, addressing the corporeality of nature and femininity. She also implements fairy-tale-like imagination and mythical symbolism across various spectrums, the positivity of aesthetic embrace and the unsettling shadow of the unknown are captured in her work.


The Time

Rooted in the principles of Eastern painting, Hong Seonghwa expresses the rhythm of emotion through line and void. Her controlled strokes carry inner vibration, and the spread of ink leaves traces of time and sentiment. By blending traditional technique with modern composition, she visualizes the breathing and movement of feeling. Her work resonates like a silent rhythm, inviting viewers to look inward and sense their own emotional echoes.


Born in 1990, Buwon had a profound interest in toys, play, and street culture from an early age. While studying industrial design at university, he became deeply immersed in 3D tools and created a rabbit character as a motif of himself. Buwon began to build his career as an artist, creating paintings and art toys.
 
Buwon wishes to convey messages about the journey of life and personal growth through his artistic expressions. His lovely rabbit character is the portrait of the artist himself, inspired by his childhood nickname. Behind the image of an adorable rabbit lies a cynical concern, intertwined with the artist's life. The artist draws inspiration from various experiences, conveying messages that encompass both positive and negative emotions, which include happiness, joy, anxiety, and fear.
 
Buwon comprises two distinct forms of art: paintings and art toys. The artist creates digital sketches before transferring them onto the canvas using acrylic paints. He often incorporates unique materials like fur or modifies canvases and panels to enhance his artistic expression and creativity. When it comes to his art toy production, he primarily focuses on creating the rabbit character. He first creates digital sketches and then builds their form through 3D modeling.
Once the design has been completed, he prints out the outcome using a 3D printer and carefully paints and finishes the toy.
 
Buwon has previously collaborated with renowned brands such as Hyundai Motor, Simmons, MCM, SJYP, Giordano, Line Friends, Nike, Asics, and artist Code Kunst. The artist is constantly expanding his artistic boundaries by holding exhibitions in different regions such as Las Vegas and Jakarta.

Kim Joo-hyun's current works represent a series of creative endeavors striving to exclude conventional drawing devices, such as vanishing points, which were habitually employed in the past. While the artist intervenes to generate images on the canvas, the work is completed by focusing solely on creating color, ensuring meaning and intention do not surface. Water-based acrylic paint is applied horizontally, allowed to settle and dry, or tilted to induce flow. Through this process, the canvas reveals a natural visual topography. As artist Kim Joo-hyun stated, the “stability derived from uncertainty” does not resolve into form, stemming from an effort to constantly evade things defined and fixed by meaning. Since neither subject matter nor theme drives the image, the completed work evokes the artist's experienced synesthesia and fleeting moments. As seen in 〈Destiny of Warmth〉 (2025), diluted pigments accumulate, erode, and leave powdery residues. The duration of the production process remains unknowable until one observes the layers of color built up on the canvas's edges. However, it is intriguing that the physical time required for the layers of water and pigment to settle and stabilize on the canvas is comparable to that needed for the sedimentary layers or soil in an actual riverbed.


Hyewon Na is a painter born in Gwangju, South Korea. Her work explores conflicting yet coexisting emotional states, such as anxiety, violence, imperfection, sacrifice, love, and beauty. Through her art, she reflects on human vulnerability and the tension between finitude and eternity. Her work is a study of how to aesthetically represent these human contradictions. Much of her inspiration comes from history, society, religion, and more.
She earned her Diplom from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (under Professor Martin Honert) in Germany, and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in South Korea, Berlin, Dresden, Paris, and other cities. She currently resides and works in Berlin, Germany.

Ahn Soo-in’s work reflects sensations long experienced as a fragile human presence standing before nature—an existence governed by an exquisitely intricate cycle. Confronted with nature as a source of wonder and longing, the raw sense of inadequacy and quiet shame, along with the persistent desire to draw closer despite them, are carefully gathered and held within the pictorial space.

Leaving behind only the visible traces of nature, the artist reconstructs colour and texture into forms reminiscent of paper folding or modelling clay, revealing a tentative yearning to collect and preserve nature itself. This act of composition is not an attempt to faithfully replicate a complete form, but rather a metaphorical reflection on the posture of beings who live perpetually in states of incompletion—an exploration of longing directed toward wholeness.

Bac Jungwon has drawn compositional paintings that express the invisible emotions and minds of humans through various scenes encountered in daily life. After receiving a bachelor's and master's degree in Fine Arts from Kookmin University, she painted unusual, dreamlike, and dramatic situations, but in her mid-30s, she began to paint natural objects and everyday landscapes. Her paintings reveal the fragile psychology and feelings of contemporary people, which are concealed beneath the solid shell of civilization. The artist portrays difficult-to-express psychological levels through a variety of painting mediums, including sketching, watercolor, and oil painting. It defines creation as the discovery of remarkable moments in the repetition of her previous everyday existence and the transformation of the meaning into a material known as painting and reconstructs a daily life from her own unique perspective.

Hwang Hyeyoung develops her practice around the central figure of the “girl.” In her work, the girl is a symbolic being who transcends specific gender and age.
Through this figure, Hwang reflects her own fragility, immaturity, and honesty, unfolding stories that resonate with her personal journey of growth. She expresses deep empathy for those experiencing the turbulent waves of adolescence, portraying the moments of growth encountered over time by both the girl in her paintings and the artist herself in reality. The forest in which the girl resides symbolizes the trials of adolescence; the expression of diverse emotions, the courage to confront threats and anxieties, and the adventurous spirit to explore new challenges and unknown worlds are all depicted as integral parts of the process of growing up.

ROKKANKIM is a South Korea–based artist who presents works across a range of genres, primarily producing media works through collage and video compositing techniques.

Drawing inspiration from the social and cultural phenomena of the 1960s and 1970s, the artist combines these references with personal experiences to create surreal visual narratives. ROKKANKIM is particularly interested in duality—the coexistence of opposing qualities such as good and evil, positivity and negativity. His work invites viewers to experience each piece in their own way, much like how a single event or phenomenon can be interpreted differently depending on individual perspective.

His representative series include Space Oddity, which explores the dual nature of astronauts’ lives alongside the beauty and fear of outer space, and Sea the Wall, which examines the layered and often conflicting relationships between the sea, architecture, and humanity.

The artist records vanished neighborhoods and landscapes, translating memory and loss into painting. The city is reimagined not as a real place, but as a layered, emotional space shaped by time and perception. What remains is a self-portrait, constructed through the memory of a city that no longer exists.

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. 

Philippe Parreno is a French Artist who rose to prominence in the 1990s, earning critical acclaim for his work that spans a diversity of media, including film, sculpture, drawing, and text. Parreno’s work redefined the exhibition experience by taking it as a medium, placing its construction at the heart of his process.
Parreno has exhibited extensively and has work in major institutions worldwide. His presentation at Cahiers d’Art inaugurates a year of major exhibitions and projects, including solo presentations at the Leeum Museum in Seoul, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and an important project at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

Lee Ufan is a South Korean artist and art critic born in 1936 in Haman-gun on the southern Korean peninsula, then part of the Japanese empire. He moved to Japan when he was 20 years old, and developed a practice anchored in an Eastern understanding of the nature of materials together with an appreciation of modern European phenomenology. In 2009, the Japanese government honored Lee by conferring the Order of the Rising Sun for “contributing to the development of contemporary art in Japan.” In 2010 the Lee Ufan Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, opened at Benesse Art Site, Naoshima, Japan. Lee has had major exhibitions worldwide, including a retrospective at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2011. In 2014, he was selected for the contemporary art program of the Palais de Versailles, and in 2019 the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC commissioned a site-specific installation for the museum’s plaza. Lee divides his time between Kamakura, Japan and Paris.

Ed. 7/10, 4AP, 3HC

Ed. 6/10, 4AP, 3HC

HaSeulLin Jeong has an interest in paintings that are located between images and materials and can simultaneously deduce the axis of time. She is a graduate of the Korea National University of Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she studied Printmaking and Painting. Later, the artist deliberately leaves traces of the previous layer or creates a support structure that will be influenced by the prior and following layers of paint, resulting in visual interpretation. HaSeulLin Jeong's artwork provides the viewer with the experience of pondering for a prolonged period of time, imagining the source of the material, and sensing that the senses are real through an individual sense that is intuitive and universally shared. 

Gon Jeong depicts diverse forms of love through his paintings He is currently working in Seoul and gets inspiration from people's conversations and emotions. It is believed that it is completed through the process of being comforted and empathized in everyday human relationships, and the artist intends to convey a message of consolation to visitors through love-themed works.  

Born in Hanover in 1964, Baumgarten studied at the “Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe” and the “École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris”, later receiving his MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1999. Since 2008, he has served as professor in the Department of Painting at Hongik University, establishing his practice in Seoul. His sustained artistic concern has been the hybridity of architecture and lived experience within urban neighborhoods. When he first visited Seoul in 1993, the dense vistas of red-brick and concrete houses climbing the hillsides struck him as at once unfamiliar and compelling. He has since focused on the hybrid landscapes born of the encounter between Western architectural order and Korean sensibilities of habitation, articulating them through his visual idiom.

I am constantly in search of people and places that bring me a sense of stability. In life, I am always confronted with certain thresholds where I long for steadiness. At those boundaries, I find myself seeking environments and situations that help me maintain a calm emotional state. Most of these are familiar to me: my family, my home, my room, and the surroundings that have held me for a long time. When I ask myself where the process of being filled and forming a sense of self first began, I cannot leave out home and family. I hold close to my heart the softness and warmth of these things, and the precious moments at home where I can express my feelings honestly. In doing so, I try to preserve a quiet emotional balance. It was only natural, then, that the act of painting and the choice of what to paint began with what was closest to me. As I step into the home and room marked by my own traces, I find myself covering over the unstable emotions I could not express outside, and recovering a sense of calm and peace. I capture in my paintings the blue wallpaper close to my body, the scattered blue clothes, the blue blankets and pillows—objects that bear the touch of my hand. Along with them, I try to hold within the painting the tactile sensations of these things against the skin, as well as the emotions of those moments: the comfort, warmth, and tenderness that arise from familiarity.

The feeling of fur brushing between my toes,
the rush of air when my father lifts the blanket high and lets it fall while I am lying down,
the snug warmth of tucking the blanket tightly around my body,
the feeling of touching the cool temperature that has settled into the pillow because of the wind outside,
the soft texture of an old blanket worn thin with holes,
a pair of socks turned inside out on the floor,
the faint sunlight slipping through the blinds,
the sunlight and brightness that reach me as I lie down,
the moon visible through the window before sleep...

I gather these emotions and sensations from my own place and wrap them together, trying to paint their atmosphere and energy. In the process of expression, the act of applying materials softly onto hanji, or tearing its surface to reveal its delicate fibres, has itself become a process through which I find emotional calm. Through the repeated gestures of laying down thick layers of paint and scraping them away, or raising the surface of the hanji, I attempt to convey indirectly a kind of fluffy, tender warmth even through the material surface itself.
Ultimately, I hope that a painting, shaped by the attitude revealed in both the subject I look at and the process of making, can become a bearer of warmth—something held close at one’s side—and that the scope of this warmth may gradually expand.

The artist Lee Hee-myoung has been exploring a multifaceted perspective on the inner self using painting and installation works, with a focus on femininity and nature since her plant installation piece in 2006. She graduated from the Department of Painting and the Graduate School of Painting at Hongik University. She has held a total of 11 solo exhibitions, including one at the Zaha Museum of Art in 2019. Additionally, she has participated in around 50 group exhibitions, such as those at the Seoul Museum of Art (2007), Sungkok Museum of Art (2008), Soma Museum of Art (2018), and Zaha Museum of Art (2023). She endeavors to establish an internal connection seeking harmony between nature and the female body through diverse expressive techniques. Departing from a vertical mindset that seeks to dominate nature as a primitive world, Lee Hee-myoung advocates for a horizontal world that aligns femininity and nature. Through contemplation of nature and inner self, she creates reassembled works based on the combination of plants and the body, addressing the corporeality of nature and femininity. She also implements fairy-tale-like imagination and mythical symbolism across various spectrums, the positivity of aesthetic embrace and the unsettling shadow of the unknown are captured in her work.

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