Yooyun Yang, Nobody, 2026, Acrylic on Korean paper (Jangji), 53x45.5cm © Duarte Sequeira Seoul
Duarte Sequeira Seoul presents 《Dog-ear 복기》, a solo exhibition by Yooyun
Yang, on view through July 18. The exhibition marks the first solo presentation
by a Korean artist since Duarte Sequeira opened its Seoul space.
Through this exhibition, Duarte Sequeira Seoul
introduces eleven new paintings by the emerging artist Yooyun Yang, whose
portrait-based works, rendered like traces of memory, have attracted increasing
attention on the international stage. The exhibition title, “Dog-ear,” refers
to the act of folding the corner of a page in a book to mark a place one wishes
to return to.
Yooyun Yang, Not Tears, 2026, Acrylic on Korean paper (Jangji), 60.8x100cm © Duarte Sequeira Seoul
The figures in these works blur and
dissolve, slipping back into the surface of the paper rather than meeting the
viewer's gaze. They are not portraits in any conventional sense. They are
closer to states than to subjects, to the residue of an encounter than to the
encounter itself.
The work is rooted in a set of quiet but
insistent questions about perception, presence, and what it means to face
another person. Running through it is also the Korean Go concept of bokgi, the
practice of replaying a finished game move by move to understand where it went.
Yooyun Yang, Pivot, 2026, Acrylic on Korean paper (Jangji), 117x91cm © Duarte Sequeira Seoul
Beneath all of this, though, is a more
personal inquiry the paintings keep circling: how clearly we are actually
encountering one another now, when faces are everywhere and the feeling of real
presence keeps thinning.
