I am a Korean-born artist based in New York City. My paintings inhabit the space where myth
and everyday life converge, shaped by the experience of living between cultures.
My practice is rooted in close observation of daily experience, the narrative imagination of
Korean folk painting, known as Minhwa, and a sustained engagement with the history of
Western painting, particularly the religious works of the Old Masters. I am struck by the intensity
of devotion embedded in the scale, repetition, and compositional order of these sacred works. As
an agnostic, I encounter this faith as both distant and overwhelming, yet also uncannily familiar.
The longing for an unseen and unreachable God resonates with my own experience of migration:
a longing for a sense of belonging that remains perpetually out of reach.
The mask-like figures that populate my paintings are derived from traditional Korean tal, once
used by commoners to satirize the ruling class. Initially drawn to them as symbols of defiance, I
have gradually transformed these forms into figures marked by longing, vulnerability, and
disorientation. They hover between the real and the fantastical, navigating dreamlike spaces that
evoke the complexity of carrying multiple worlds within oneself. Appearing as totemic
presences, these figures often hold orbs whose identities remain ambiguous, oscillating between
masks and faces. The mythical Haetae, a guardian figure from Korean folklore, recurs throughout
my work as both witness and guide.
By combining the flattened perspectives, symbolism, and wit of Minhwa with compositional
structures informed by Western painting, I construct spaces imbued with tension, humor, and
poetic ambiguity. Through this interplay between personal narrative and historical reference, I
explore questions of representation, memory, and the perpetual longing for home. While rooted
in personal experience, my work resonates with broader conversations around displacement,
visibility and the human search for connection and belonging.
EDUCATION
2024 MFA, Painting — Hunter College, New York, NY.
2019 BFA, Painting & Drawing (High Distinction); Minor in Visual Studies — California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2006 MA — Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Bull in a China Shop, Aurora Theater, Berkeley, CA.
2019 The Willful Subject, Hubbell Street Galleries, San Francisco, CA.
2019 Haunting, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Third Space Is a Verb, Li Tang Gallery, New York, NY (virtual). International juried exhibition.
2026 In the Mood for Love, VillageOneArt, New York, NY.
2026 Smallish, Gallery Ondo, Seoul, South Korea.
2025 Five Visions of the World, LaiSun Keane Gallery, Boston, MA. Curated by John Yau, with accompanying exhibition essay.
2025 Let Me Out, Sidebitch Project Space, San Gabriel, CA.
2024 Perfume of a Thousand Things, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, NY.
2022 Here & Now, Casa Lally, New York, NY.
2022 Uncommon Senses, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, NY.
2019 Disegno 9, Hubbell Street Galleries, San Francisco, CA; Kansas City Art Institute, MO; Maryland Institute
College of Art, Baltimore, MD.
2019 Savoir Faire, Hubbell Street Galleries, San Francisco, CA.
2019 The Fine Arts All-College Honors & Scholarship Awards Exhibition, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA.
2019 Another Way Around, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
2019 Social Sock-hop Project, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
2018 Vice Versa, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY.
2017 Labor Exhibition, Isabelle Percy West Gallery, Oakland, CA.
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2022 Here & Now, co-curator, Casa Lally, New York, NY.
2019 The Willful Subject, curator, Hubbell Street Galleries, San Francisco, CA.
2019 Haunting, curator, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2019 Disegno 9, curator, Hubbell Street Galleries, San Francisco, CA.
2019 Social Sock-hop Project, co-curator, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
2018 Vice Versa, co-curator, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY.
AWARDS / SCHOLARSHIPS / RESIDENCIES
2019 Residency, Summer Studio Program, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (June–July 2019).
2019 Anderson Ranch Scholarship.
2019 All-College Honors Ralls Scholarship.
2019 Award of Excellence, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
PUBLICATIONS
Cover Artworks
2025 Aliens for Hocus Pocus Bogus Locus by Jack Saebyok Jung, Black Square Editions.
2019 Self-Portrait for Humble Pie, California College of the Arts.
Featured
2015 Intoxicated, Labyrinth magazine, College of San Mateo, CA.
2014 Samulnori: Korean Traditional Percussion Quartet, Labyrinth magazine, College of San Mateo, CA.
Catalogues & Essays
2025 John Yau, “Five Visions of the World,” exhibition essay, LaiSun Keane Gallery, Boston, MA.
PRESS
2026 Jianing Lu, "Third Space Is a Verb, Shifts of Memory, Identity and the Moving Adaptation," Asian Art Contemporary, September 1, 2026.