Won Seoungwon (b. 1972) meticulously collages countless images she photographs or collects, weaving them into a single frame. The resulting fantastical, painting-like images convey her own stories, tales of her surroundings, or subtle narratives about members of our society, presented in an allegorical manner.

After studying sculpture in Korea, the artist pursued further studies in Germany, where she encountered the inspiration to begin her current collage work, weaving intimate and seemingly trivial stories through images. Facing a crisis that nearly led to dropping out of school, she returned to her small 2x4-meter room and decided to photograph every object in the space.

The resulting installation, My Life (1999), was created from 628 photographs of items like medicine packets, letters from her mother, socks, and half-eaten pieces of bread, along with related notes. This work marked a turning point, shifting her focus from large-scale conceptual projects to smaller works imbued with an inner necessity.

With My Life as a starting point, Won Seoungwon began exploring the relationship between space and the individual. Building on this interest, she created the series Dreamroom (2000–2004), which digitally realized diverse personal desires for space. This series marked the beginning of her unique artistic world.

To bring to life the ideal spaces envisioned by herself and her friends, the artist traveled extensively to photograph suitable imagery. She then meticulously composited these disparate landscapes onto actual room photographs using Photoshop. The resulting 12 works depict surreal, fantastical scenes—such as an ordinary studio apartment with a swamp in the middle—that are impossible in reality.

In 2008, Won Seoungwon held her first solo exhibition, “Tomorrow” (Alternative Space Loop, 2008), showcasing her series Tomorrow (2008), a collection of fictional landscapes created using the deeply ordinary and personal stories of her real-life acquaintances.

The Tomorrow series begins with the artist’s imagination, inspired by events from the past or present. Featuring family, friends, and colleagues as protagonists, Won constructs specific scenarios and travels across the country to collect images that fit these narratives. The resulting works, composed of fragments of images from various locations, intertwine past, present, and imagined futures, creating a hybrid, fictional space-time.

The My Age of Seven series, presented in 2010, delves into the artist's childhood, revisited through the lens of adulthood. When Won Seoungwon turned seven, her mother began working outside the home, marking their first separation. This pivotal experience left a profound imprint on the artist’s mind and body, becoming a significant event that lingered in her subconscious and continued to influence her into adulthood.

The My Age of Seven series represents a healing journey to reconcile with this past. Comprised of 11 works, the series follows the journey of the artist’s young niece, who serves as a stand-in for seven-year-old Won, searching for her suddenly vanished mother. In these works, the niece symbolizes the artist as a child, while the mother is represented by a tree, appearing only as a symbolic presence.

The process of confronting long-buried inner memories is expressed within the frames of My Age of Seven in an allegorical and symbolic manner. Among her works, this series stands out as the most intimate and personal, allowing Won Seoungwon to communicate not only with her childhood self but also with others through this self-reflective journey.

Although the series is deeply autobiographical, its storybook-like structure and familiar visual motifs make it universally relatable, drawing viewers into a shared experience that resonates with common emotions and memories.

In 2012, following the sudden passing of her mother, Won Seoungwon presented the work Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, a triptych reflecting on the imperfection of human life. The sea serves as a recurring motif across all three images.

The left image metaphorically represents past memories, stretching from the moment of birth, through imagery such as small caves and hills. Red, tentacle-like branches resembling neural networks weave through the quiet hills, symbolizing the way past memories unexpectedly intrude upon and influence the present.

The center image symbolizes the present. A tree, appearing unstable, stretches its branches skyward as if desperately grasping to stay afloat amidst the moderately rolling waves. Clinging to its surface are withered plants, flowers, and grasses, representing the various stresses that torment it. Though consumed by anxiety and stress, the tree extends its red, tentacle-like branches into the sea of the past, drawing upon experiences and memories to sustain itself and find the strength to endure. 

Finally, the right image represents the future, featuring a turbulent sea symbolizing the climactic moments of life and a solid, serene land that ultimately signifies the inevitability of death.

In her 2017 solo exhibition “The Sight of the Others” at Arario Gallery, Won Seoungwon presented large-scale collage photographs that symbolized professionals such as public officials, financiers, and journalists through animals and natural landscapes. This body of work originated from the artist's curiosity about whether one's profession determines their identity, inspired by her interactions with people across various fields. 

For example, Quarries of the Financiers (2017) depicts financiers as if mining gold from a barren rocky mountain, metaphorically illustrating their role in converting intangible assets like funds and stocks into capital value. The light bulbs and wires hanging from dry branches symbolize graphs representing economic indicators or stock market fluctuations.

Last year, Won Seoungwon presented her solo exhibition “Freezing Point of All” at Museum Hanmi, showcasing works that visualized the boundary between human inferiority and superiority. The series stemmed from the fundamental question, “Why do even superior individuals experience feelings of inferiority?” and depicted people grappling with their inferiority through the imagery of icy mountains.

Two years prior, the artist had anthropomorphized so-called successful individuals as trees in her exhibition at Arario Gallery. Building on this exploration, Won observed that even the most accomplished individuals harbor feelings of inferiority beneath their sense of superiority. She conceptualized these dynamics through the metaphor of ice, illustrating how inferiority manifests differently depending on how it is handled.

Won Seoungwon metaphorically represents individuals who have frozen due to an inability to properly handle their feelings of inferiority, or those who cling to icicles in an effort to retain their sense of self. Her icy mountain imagery is not one of a barren winter landscape with blue leaves fallen, but rather a scene where, amidst the frozen ice, resilient grass still emerges, refusing to lose its vitality.

Through these images, Won Seoungwon aims to convey the will to overcome the ice and grow towards the tree, symbolizing the strength and determination of individuals who, despite the limitations posed by feelings of inferiority, continue to nurture their inner growth and keep pushing forward.

In this way, Won Seoungwon portrays the past, present, and future of individuals living in the contemporary world, as well as the groups they belong to, through her unique perspective. Her work, which begins with a microscopic and personal viewpoint, weaves together common, small stories gathered through conversations with others, attempting to initiate a dialogue with the audience.

"As opposed to talking about the forest, I’m focusing on the individual trees within it. The forest can only change when the trees change, but people tend to focus only on the forest. I believe that the story of the tree should be the foundation for any larger story. When you work with trees, many overlapping stories emerge, and I believe that, in the long run, this will touch upon societal issues." (Won Seoungwon, heypop interview, December 22, 2022)

Won Seoungwon received M.F.A. from Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in 2002 and Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln in 2005. Won held solo exhibitions at Museum Hanmi (Seoul, 2022-2023), Arario Gallery (Seoul, 2021, 2017), Podbielsky Contemporary (Berlin, 2014), Gana Contemporary (Seoul, 2010), Alternative Space LOOP (Seoul, 2008), and Gana-beaubourg (Paris, 2006).
 
And she has participated in numerous group exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Total Museum of Art, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, MoCA Shanghai, and Liverpool Biennial 2012 Won’s works are collected at Osthaus Museum (Germany), Santa Barbara Museum of Art (US) Fidelity Worldwide Investment (US) Kunsthaus Lempertz (Germany), Museum of Photography (Korea), Seoul Museum of Art (Korea),  Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Korea), and Goeun Art Foundation (Korea).

References

• 아라리오갤러리, 원성원 (Arario Gallery, Won Seoungwon)
• 사진예술, 원성원: 이미지로 듣는 이야기
• 코리안 아티스트 프로젝트, 원성원 (Korean Artist Project, Won Seoungwon)
• 대안공간 루프, 원성원 개인전: 투모로우 (Alternative Space Loop, Won Seoungwon Solo Exhibition: Tomorrow)
• 박건희문화재단, 원성원 – 어제 오늘 내일, 2012 (Parkgeonhi Foundation, Won Seoungwon – Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, 2012)
• heypop, 우리 모두에게는 ‘빙점’이 있다, 원성원 작가, 2022.12.22