Chung Suejin’s solo exhibition《Budo Wido (不圖爲圖)》foregrounds the fundamental question of what painting can ultimately depict—and what it cannot. Through this inquiry, the exhibition marks the artist’s full-scale attempt to reposition painting as a medium capable of revealing the structures of cognition.
 
“Budo Wido (不圖爲圖)” refers to creating an image not by representing visible forms, but by giving shape to things that cannot be directly seen—such as emotion, perception, thought, and the structure of consciousness.
 
The chromatic and formal system Chung has developed over the years is not a matter of visual abstraction or formal experimentation. Instead, it functions as a tool for translating the structure of consciousness into visual patterns.

Chung works between two conceptual strata: the “realm of reality,” which concerns the physical world, and the “realm of form,” which refers to the countless perspectives through which the world is perceived.
 
Her paintings emerge precisely in the narrow interval where these two layers meet—the fleeting threshold where the structure of cognition becomes temporarily visible.
 
Thus, “painting what cannot be painted” is not the presentation of abstract form or a non-representational result. Rather, it reveals the artist’s commitment to organizing the invisible realms of emotion, perception, thought, and the unconscious into a coherent visual structure.
 
Emotions that cannot be painted, thoughts that resist language, and imperceptible cognitive tremors—Chung’s paintings concentrate on capturing these delicate structural vibrations.
 
Repeated bottle-like shapes, subtle color shifts, and slightly displaced lines do not depict emotional states. Instead, they expose the residual trace of consciousness left after emotion has receded. This residual layer operates in slow, fine vibrations that differ from the conventions of color-field abstraction or structuralist painting.
 
Consequently, the surface is governed not by the traditional expressive logic of emotion but by the structural residue that remains once emotion has been emptied out. “Painting what is not painted” is therefore not a simple anti-representational stance; it is a question directed toward the preconditions that make images possible.

For decades, Korean painting has oscillated between representation and non-representation, lyrical abstraction and conceptual abstraction—constantly reexamining the “conditions of painting” well ingrained in Western art history.
 
Since the 2000s, the proliferation of digital imagery has paradoxically led many painters to reaffirm painting’s role by returning to traditional concerns: compositional order, materiality, and formal balance.
 
Chung’s practice diverges from this trajectory. Her work does not pursue the completion of an image or the refinement of form. Instead, it investigates the pre-image state—the cognitive vibrations that precede the formation of shape—and explores how human consciousness can be translated into a visual language.

For this reason, Chung’s painting refuses to be confined within the familiar category of “abstract painting.” Her work does not aim to simplify visual forms or develop geometric order. Rather, it seeks to reveal the conditions of perception under which the invisible surfaces onto the visible plane.
 
In this sense, her practice offers a key insight into how 21st-century Korean contemporary painting might be redefined.

Chung’s paintings ask: Where does the invisible world reside, how can it be sensed, and in what temporal dimension do humans encounter it?
 
For Chung, painting is not a combination of sensory images but a structural semiotic system that records cognitive operations. By organizing emotion, perception, observation, and the unconscious, she minimizes material surface so that the canvas becomes a map of cognition, transforming painting into a linguistic structure.
 
This exhibition marks the first full-scale presentation of the conceptual framework Chung has developed over many years, articulated through a structural pictorial apparatus. It also serves as a reminder of painting’s essential role—beyond representation and image production—within a contemporary culture oversaturated with visual stimuli.

Artist Profile

Chung Suejin (b. 1969) received her BFA in Painting from Hongik University and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She expanded her practice through residencies such as Ssamzi Residency and Doosan Residency New York. Her work has been presented at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), Espace Louis Vuitton Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, among others.
 
Following significant attention from her solo booth at Frieze Seoul 2025, Budo Wido marks the first exhibition in which her conceptual and cognitive painting system is articulated as a cohesive structural language.


 
Exhibition Information

Exhibition Title : Chung Suejin:《Budo Wido (不圖為圖)》
Exhibition Period : November 11, 2025 – January 10, 2026
Venue : S2A, 1F, S-Tower, 325 Yeongdong-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Organizer : S2A (Space 2 Art)
Contact : T. 02-6252-7777 www.s2a.kr Instagram: @s2a_space