Heemin Chung (b. 1987) has explored how technology shapes our perception and influences art in an era where much of daily life has shifted online. To investigate this, she transforms digital images—such as those found in games, advertisements, and 3D objects, which are characterized by their ephemeral nature—into paintings and sculptures, thereby rediscovering the materiality inherent in these subjects.

Heemin Chung explored how the countless images created and shared in digital environments influence the way we perceive objects and our desires toward them in her first solo exhibition, 《Yesterday’s Blues》 (Project Space Sarubia, 2016).

To explore this, Chung collected various images that have become accessible through advancements in communication technology, including representations of natural landscapes experienced indirectly, virtual reality imagery encountered through game interfaces, and mass-produced postcards and posters made possible by digital printing technology.

The images she primarily gathered were two-dimensional landscape representations designed to evoke experiences, memories, and desires related to their subjects.

The artist reconfigures these collected images by enlarging, juxtaposing, manipulating, connecting, and combining them in various ways. Through this process, disparate images collide, merge, and overlap on the pictorial surface, creating a dynamic interplay of different modes of representation.

This layered composition resembles the thin veneer of images that mediate commodified experiences, manufactured desires, and fragmented memories. By doing so, Chung exposes the illusion constructed by the strategic use of landscape imagery.

In his second solo exhibition, 《UTC-7:00 JUN 3 PM On the Table》 (Kumho Museum of Art, 2018), Chung explored notions of identity through virtual still lifes. This exhibition, which laid the groundwork for her future sculptural language, began with an analogy between experiences in virtual ecosystems and dreams. 

Using 3D modeling software, the artist constructed a virtual table filled with everyday objects and imagined herself as one of these objects, drifting through space and documenting the scenes she encountered through paintings and text. To emphasize the volume and presence of these objects, she depicted them with only their fundamental structures, light, and shadows, omitting textures. Over these forms, she applied irregular stains using gel medium and oil paint.

In Chung’s work, the visualization of illusion and mirage follows a strategy not unlike that of traditional painting. She positions her practice as an extension of conventional painting techniques, stating, “Given its long history, I believe painting is an easy medium to detect changes in the way we see and perceive.” 

Taking this further, Chung overlays translucent gel medium stains across canvases, each depicting different perspectives. This creates a screen-like barrier between the virtual world and the viewer, continuously pushing the viewer away, fostering a sense of alienation, and disrupting immersion into the illusion.

In this series of works, Heemin Chung draws a parallel between the nature of the virtual space where still-life objects are placed and the qualities of a dream, metaphorically presenting her perception of the world within the screen. To her, the screen’s world is vast, infinitely proliferating, never aging, constantly shifting forms, collapsing, and regenerating in an endless cycle. Chung explains that she seeks to explore the sense of helplessness or alienation an individual might experience when confronting such a space.

The artist’s interest in such spaces became more concretely expressed in her 2018 exhibition 《EVE》 at Samyuk Building. Heemin Chung was drawn to the word “eve,” which refers to the ghostly time just before a specific moment arrives, and it led her to consider the virtual space of the computer’s recycle bin. 

Chung saw the recycle bin—holding fragments of images and text that are on the verge of being discarded yet still retain the potential for recovery—as a metaphor for the present world we live in. Based on this reflection, she began creating works that visualize ways of adapting to a soon-to-be-forgotten world using images retrieved from the digital recycle bin. 

The resulting paintings, May Your Shadow Grow Less (2018) and Erase Everything but Love (2018), share three key concepts: “illusion,” “materiality,” and “layer.” Both works metaphorically represent contemporary landscapes where disparate times and spaces coexist, resisting a singular perception.

The artist believes that the contemporary landscape, where the virtual and the real are inextricably intertwined, cannot be reproduced as a single, opaque layer. Instead, she amplifies the material differences between layers, depicting a space of ruins. The interplay between illusion and materiality, evident in her previous works, collides on the artist’s surface, creating a paradoxical composition. The accumulated layers on the canvas serve as a device that adds depth to the illusion. 

In Erase Everything but Love, Chung constructs the image by layering fragments of Google Maps landscapes from different sources, repeatedly erasing and superimposing them. This continuous process of layering and deletion mirrors the contemporary visual environment, where countless images constantly emerge and disappear, reflecting how we consume and process visual information today.

Since 2021, flowers—now a signature element of Heemin Chung’s work—have begun to appear in her paintings. Rather than being depicted as traditional still-life renderings on a flat surface, her flowers take on a dimensional form through the use of gel medium, which she applies to the canvas to sculpt the petals in relief. On top of these textured surfaces, she overlays images of natural elements sourced from the web, using various printing techniques such as acrylic spray, inkjet transfer, and UV printing, creating a multi-layered composition. 

Since around 2017, Chung has been applying gel medium to her painting surfaces to create a translucent membrane, visualizing how our abstract bodies—navigating between the virtual and the real—perceive and internalize information and experience. Meanwhile, in her floral works, gel medium transforms into individual petals or takes on the shape of three-dimensional folds, establishing an independent presence distinct from the painting’s surface.

These works exist in a peculiar hybrid state—both flat and not flat at the same time. Through this approach, Heemin Chung moves beyond her earlier focus on the illusion of virtual images and instead engages with the raw, organic materiality of physical matter. She highlights the inseparable hybrid experiences of contemporary existence and the emotional transformations that come with them. 

In 2021, at 《Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb》, an exhibition held at Nam-Seoul Museum of Art, Chung presented her series of flower paintings under the title ‘Serpentine Twerk’. Drawing inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe, a renowned painter known for her flower motifs, Chung explored the wild, grotesque energy of flowers, seeing their visual strangeness as analogous to the trance-like state experienced by contemporary digital users. Through this perspective, she proposed a form of conscious liberation. 

The ‘Serpentine Twerk’ series consists of four paintings featuring white cattleya orchids, black irises, and other floral forms. However, rather than being read as distinct floral images, these elements are layered and fused together into singular masses. In this body of work, Chung experiments with a more dynamic treatment of material, engaging in a meditative inquiry through its fluidity. The resulting clusters of petals, fabric-like textures, and paint formations embody traces of physical sensation and movement.

The images that break free from the flatness of painting sometimes extend beyond the canvas frame, occupying space as more independent entities. For example, in her 2023 solo exhibition 《Receivers》 at DOOSAN Gallery, Chung introduced sculptures resembling tree bark, printed through data transmission. 

These sculptures, created using photogrammetry models of natural objects sourced from the web by various users, take forms such as tree bark, crustacean tails, and the surface markings of minerals—unidentifiable shapes, materials, and textures in an imperfect synthetic state. 

Chung imagined the texture of these original surfaces she had never physically encountered, delicately tracing them by hand. Through this process, she sought to blend different dimensions and amplify physical sensations, conveying the idea that we are never able to fully comprehend the diverse, fragmented realities and temporalities we encounter.

In her 2024 solo exhibition 《UMBRA》 at Thaddaeus Ropac London, Chung reinterpreted the traditional Korean funeral ritual Chobun and the traditional play Dasiraegi (Rebirth), which took place during funerals, offering a contemporary reflection on life and death. The Dasiraegi ritual, which involves the exhumation of bones that have long been separated from the body in nature, tells the story of a woman who deceives her blind husband, has an affair, and even gives birth.

Starting with the question, "Why did our ancestors dance, exchange jokes, engage in irreverent fantasies, and speak of new births at death scenes?", Chung sought to reenact this in her exhibition. To achieve this, the artist envisioned the exhibition space as a stage, placing works infused with "traces of death"—such as dead birds, trees, and broken roads witnessed in the city—upon it.

Alongside this, the artist reconfigured various images found online into resurrected flesh by imbuing them with materiality, transforming the exhibition space into a site where death and birth coexist and intersect. In this way, Chung extended her exploration of materiality and sensation in the digitized, contemporary environment beyond the material realm, addressing philosophical reflections on death through tangible forms in her works for 《UMBRA》.

Heemin Chung faces the world both inside and outside the screen, capturing in her work the sensations she experiences. She sensitively addresses our perceptions and emotions in the context of the contemporary environment, where disparate elements are intricately mixed and clash. Her works allow us to momentarily pause and reflect on how we are currently responding in a rapidly changing technological landscape and the environments that shift with it.

”As more aspects of our lives move online, I believe the way we perceive and relate to objects is evolving. I’m interested in deriving different meanings from the original, questioning things I’ve taken for granted, and using traditional materials to do so.” (Heemin Chung, Artist’s Note)

Heemin Chung received her MFA in Fine Arts from the Korea National University of Arts, Seoul, and has since exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at Thaddaeus Ropac, London (2024), DOOSAN Art Center, Seoul (2023); Sindoh Art Space, Seoul (2022); Museumhead, Seoul (2021); Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul (2018); and PS Sarubia, Seoul (2016).

She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including those at WESS, Seoul (2023); Nam-Seoul Museum of Art (2021); Eulji Art Center, Seoul (2021); Soorim Art Center, Seoul (2020); Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan (2020); Rainbowcube, Seoul (2020); Platform L, Seoul (2019); Boan 1942, Seoul (2019); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon (2019); Hite Collection, Seoul (2018); Korean Cultural Center, Hong Kong (2018); and Archive Bomm, Seoul (2017).

Chung, who presented her work at the 2022 Busan Biennale, was awarded the DOOSAN Arts Award in the same year. She has participated in the SeMA Nanji Residency, Seoul (2022); Sindoh Artist Support Program (2020); and MMCA Residency Goyang (2020). Her works are housed in public institutions including the MMCA Art Bank; Seoul Museum of Art; and Kumho Museum of Art, and more.

References

• 정희민, Heemin Chung (Artist Website)
• 인천문화통신 3.0, 정희민 인터뷰, 2019.07.10 (IFACNEWS 3.0, Heemin Chung Interview, 2019.07.10)
• 타데우스 로팍, 정희민 (Thaddaeus Ropac, Heemin Chung)
• 프로젝트 스페이스 사루비아, 어제의 파랑 (Project Space Sarubia, Yesterday’s Blues)
• 금호미술관, UTC -7:00 Jun 오후 3시의 테이블 (Kumho Museum of Art, UTC -7:00 Jun 3PM, On the Table)
• 월간미술, 정희민의 감응적 그림과 동시대 지각
• 남서울미술관, 걱정을 멈추고 폭탄을 사랑하기 (Nam-Seoul Museum of Art, Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
• 두산아트센터, 수신자들 (DOOSAN Art Center, Receivers)
• 하퍼스 바자, 회화와 조각 사이, 감각을 자극하는 정희민의 작품 앞에서, 2024.10.28