Sooyeon Hong’s work process can be explained in three stages. First, she builds a background with layers of paints, dispensing with any visible spots or brush strokes. Numbers of layers creates a subtle neutral background color. Afterwards, she places abstract forms on her canvas, carefully considering force, balance and tension between the forms. Lastly, as she guides her flat form volumes and shadows through a slow constructive process that requires putting additional layers on the form, she is able to create an illusionary world in which abstract forms float around in an unknown, imaginary space. Her use of delicate bluish, greenish, and grayish colors gives viewers the sense of ambiguity. These seemingly simplistic pictures contain the ambiguous duality of delicate plastic beauty combined with splendid colors and aesthetics found in some minimalists’ paintings. This indescribable ambiguity is clearly the essence of her work. (Excerpt from “Deviation and explosion in controlled and balance space” by Phil Lee)
Sooyeon Hong was born in Seoul in 1967. She graduated from Hongik University with a bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.) in painting and a master of fine arts (M.F.A.), and then went to from Pratt Institute, the Graduate School of Art (M.F.A.). Since her first solo exhibition in 1992, Hong has had 11 solo exhibitions at Posco Art Museum, Kumho Museum of Art, Gallery IHN, Total Museum of Contemporary Art(The Room), Gallery Plant, Gallery ROYAL and so on, as well as a number of group exhibitions including 'corporeity_Sooyeon Hong & Hunchung Lee'(2013, BK Gallery, Seoul), 'Vessels'(2013, LWL-industriemuseum, Germany), 'Aesthetic Categories' (2013, wumin art center, Cheongju), 'Korean Eye'(2012, Saatchi Gallery, London), 'Sporadic Positioning' (2012, Arario Gallery, Cheonan), 'A pleasure with dear friends!' (2011, Posco Art Museum, Seoul), '21 & Their Times' (2010, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul), 'Wonderful Pictures'(2009, Ilmin Museum, Seoul), 'Korean Modernism' (2005, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul) and 'Sense & Sensibility'(2003, Busan Museum of Art). In addition, she participated in residency programs: the National Art Studio Chang-dong (2002-2003) and Opekta Studio Residency Program (2013, Cologne, Germany).
Her works are owned by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul National University Museum, Kumho Museum of Art, Yonsei University Museum, Consulate General of Korea in Shanghai, the Embassy of Korea in the Netherlands, the Embassy of Korea in India, etc.
