For her first solo exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, and the first presentation to take place in Europe, Seoul-based artist Heemin Chung presents a new body of paintings, sculptures and a video. Her artworks explore the sensorial impact of transitional states – from darkness to light, from virtual to physical – in the rapidly changing city of Seoul. As Chung explains, ‘In this city, technology has gone beyond mere convenience; it has fundamentally altered our relationship with space and time.’ Titled UMBRA in reference to the deep shadows cast by celestial bodies, the exhibition unfolds a world of shadows, replicas and rituals. This investigation of our contemporary condition includes a reimagining of the traditional Korean funeral ritual Chobun.
Watch the artist discussing the exhibition
My work often begins with a very subtle and fleeting sensation, almost like a whisper that moves between the physical and the virtual.
— Heemin Chung
The interplay between the physical and the virtual, the felt and the replicated, the seen and the unseen is central to Chung’s work. For her new series of paintings she was inspired by the objects that she encounters on early morning walks in the streets of Seoul: from man-made urban detritus to elements belonging to the natural world. Translucent and white layers cloud dark backgrounds with hints of purple and pink, capturing the softness of light, the fog and the subtle gradations of colour that occur at the break of dawn.
Scattering Vanishing Notknowing Between Open Lips, 2024
Acrylic, gel medium and UV print on canvas
240 x 459 cm (94.49 x 180.71 in)
Through her process Chung addresses the material loss that occurs when three-dimensional forms are flattened into two-dimensional data, exploring the gap between technological and physical realities. Sourcing digital images of similar objects – notably flowers, sea shells, bark and bird feathers, but also car shells and broken roads – her canvases are printed with this imagery and then built up with painted additions to synthesise them into new forms.
The Sleeping Birds – Thin, Ambiguous, Abstract, and Intermediate – Which Decided to Be Engraved on the Expanded Land Was Already There but Nowhere to Be Found, 2024
Acrylic, oil, gel medium, resin and UV print on canvas
181 x 227 cm (71.26 x 89.37 in)
Employing her signature use of gel medium, she creates membrane-like sheets, the surfaces of which are also at times digitally printed or painted, then draped, tucked and pinched onto the canvases or metallic structures.
The resulting works offer echoed forms of the original objects and digital images, reconfiguring the genre of the still life as Chung asserts her innovative approach to painting. ‘Given its long history, I believe painting is a medium through which we are able to detect changes in the way we see and perceive,’ she says, reflecting on the effect of the digital realm on our contemporary perception.
I Will Give My Love to Pigeons, 2024
Acrylic, gel medium, resin and UV print on canvas
194 x 112 cm (76.38 x 44.09 in)
By re-materialising objects that have become data through techniques such as transferring and casting, I open up an imaginary space of replication and proliferation.
— Heemin Chung
From the Old Prophet, 2024
Acrylic, gel medium and UV print on canvas
194 x 130 cm (76.38 x 51.18 in)
In a Carcass Cooled Just Right for New Growth, 2024
UV printed gel medium and aluminum
80 x 80 x 80 cm (31.5 x 31.5 x 31.5 in)
The Chobun ritual is often accompanied with a traditional Korean play, the Dasiraegi (Rebirth) which starts with a betrayal and ends with the birth of a child, conveying that life and death coexist. Chung explains: ‘At the site of death, our ancestors danced, joked, indulged in profane imaginations, and spoke of new births.’ In reference to Dasiraegi, the sculptures are presented on a raised LED platform to emulate the idea of a stage, casting the gallery as an arena for her art.
Revisited Thinking, 2024
Gel medium, resin and stainless steel
100 x 90 x 75 cm (39.37 x 35.43 x 29.53 in)
It Quietly Exhales Colors, 2024
Gel medium, resin, stainless steel and copper pipe
185 x 100 x 105 cm (72.83 x 39.37 x 41.34 in)
Chung reinterprets the play in a new video using advanced 3D modelling. She restructures the ritual and the story’s framework, layering two different timelines – her own childhood and a day in the life of her grandfather. With an acute sensitivity to the societal dynamics of our era, Chung reflects on the intersection of life and death, technology and humanity, and the profound fatigue of contemporary existence in a digitised world.
UMBRA, 2024
Single channel video with sound, 11'02"
Ed. 1 of 3 + 1 AP
