Chung Heeseung (b. 1974) has consistently explored the relationship between the essence of a object and its image through the medium of photography, focusing on the gap that emerges between the two.

Furthermore, the artist has delved into the limitations and possibilities revealed in the process of translating an object into an image. Chung works with everyday objects, the human body, and spaces, amplifying the materiality of the photographic medium. At the same time, she incorporates text to examine the relationship between image and language as imperfect tools of communication.

After completing her studies in London, Chung returned to Korea and held her first solo exhibition, “Persona”, at Gallery Wa in 2008. The Persona series presented in this exhibition explored the relationship between "mask" and "face" in portrait photography. 

The title Persona originates from the masks worn by actors in ancient Greek theater. From a psychological perspective, it refers to the social and psychological masks individuals adopt to fulfill various roles in different social contexts, presenting themselves to others. 

To examine the relationship between these masks and the true face that may lie behind them, the artist collaborated with actors. During 3-5 minutes monologue performances, she mechanically pressed the shutter, capturing a range of expressions and faces on film.

In the Persona series, Chung Heeseung experimented with capturing the emotional flow and inner state of actors immersed in their performances through photography. In her subsequent Reading (2010) series, she aimed to depict the process in which actors gradually lose themselves while reading scripts.

Chung focused on the subtle tension that arises as actors analyze and understand the characters they are about to portray, eventually merging and internalizing these personas. She sought to capture on camera the moments when the tension between reason and emotion within the actors is expressed through their facial expressions and gestures.

Chung's Still Life (2009–2013) series comprises still-life photographs focusing on objects or the human body, presenting an experimental approach to image-making through repeated, intuitive, and improvisational shooting. 

In this series, Chung persistently observed a single object for at least two weeks, occasionally introducing spontaneous arrangements, while methodically capturing images with her camera. Through this repetitive process, preconceived notions about the object gradually began to peel away, allowing the resulting images to diverge from the artist's original intentions.

The photographic images, stripped of all intention and meaning, approach the viewer as unfamiliar despite depicting familiar objects. Chung Heeseung explains that it is only when the original function of the object or the artist's intention disappears that the image can exist independently in its own right.

Chung Heeseung has consistently been drawn to what is not easily visible on the surface of a object—various states and latent elements hidden in the background. Realizing that such potentialities of an object are inherently tied to the act of "seeing," she began creating works that focus on perceptual experiences through photography.

For instance, her 2013 series Inadequate Metaphors goes beyond attempting to capture the inner essence of an object, pushing toward the limits of photography as a medium in that process. The images in this series are detached from any deliberate intent, and all metaphors within them are deliberately inadequate.

This body of work acknowledges the representational limitations of photography as an intrinsic characteristic of the medium. Rather than attempting to overcome these limitations, Chung pushes them further, seeking new possibilities and modes of communication within the medium itself.

As a result, the work engages less with the conveyance of meaning and more with the perceptual and psychological mechanisms of photography. In the perceptual and psychological interaction between photographic images and viewers, the image shifts from being an object of interpretation to one of experience. This transformation allows viewers to move beyond the passive act of seeing and actively establish a relationship with the object in an engaged and participatory manner.

Chung participated in the 12th Gwangju Biennale by focusing on the Former Armed Forces Gwangju Hospital, a site deeply marked by the historical wounds of Gwangju Uprising. The artist discovered the raw and unmediated essence of a space seemingly suspended in history, left untouched since 2007, as though it hovers in time without fully settling into the present.

The artist focused on the landscape of the former Armed Forces Gwangju Hospital, which holds historical symbolism but has been disconnected from the real life and absorbed by time, creating Remembrance has a rear and front (2018). This work captures the gap in time and the strange tension felt both inside and outside the former Armed Forces Gwangju Hospital. The artist conveys this through a narrow, long vertical format.

Within the work lies a coexistence of subtle clashes and harmonies between the interior and exterior, a tension born from the intersection of disparate traces, and scenes where warmth emerges amid the chill of an abandoned space—elements that are challenging to describe in words. Chung sought to capture the atmosphere and landscape of the former Armed Forces Gwangju Hospital, layered with the memories of tragedy, not as a historically defined space, but as a place imbued with the present air and scenery that history has failed to record.

Chung Heeseung was selected as one of the sponsored artists for the “Korea Artist Prize 2020" and participated in an exhibition centered around the theme of the challenges and reflections of living as an artist. For this, the artist conducted interviews with 24 fellow artists, and based on these conversations, created photographic images and texts, which were presented under the titles Dancing Together in Sinking Ship and Poetry for Alcoholics and Angels.

Although divided into two parts based on the mediums of photography and text, the content forms a single, interconnected installation work. Chung's diverse interactions with twenty-four fellow artists are transformed into portrait photographs, images of objects from the artists' daily lives, and short fragments of conversations that she had with them while producing this work.

Further enhanced with music, this concrete yet ambiguous collection of images and text conveys the powerful fear and devotion of those who choose life as an artist, while reminding us that art is just as absurd and impermanent as life.

Chung Heeseung creates a sequence by specifically arranging images according to the exhibition space, building synesthetic narratives. In the “Korea Artist Prize” exhibition, the artist encouraged a free visual experience between the combined images and texts, without a fixed path, while also introducing auditory intervention through music.

In this way, Chung Heeseung has experimented with the limitations and possibilities of photography as a medium, expanding the visual act of "seeing" into an experience of communication. The artist goes beyond simply producing photographic images, rearranging them according to the exhibition context and combining them with texts or music, creating various variations that transform the objects within the images into a state of infinite potential, where they cannot be clearly defined.

"Photography is hard to define. It doesn't have a fixed identity." (Chung Heeseung, "Unphotographable" (Doosan Art Center, 2010) interview)

Chung Heeseung receives BFA in Painting at Hongik University and two degrees BA and MA in Photography at London College of Communication, London. Chung has established herself as a leading figure in contemporary Korean photography, winning the 11th Daum Prize (2012) and the SongEun Art Award (2011). In 2020, she was selected as a finalist for the Korea Artist Prize at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

Since then, she has been invited major art institutions such as Ilmin Museum of Art (2021), Belfast Photo Festival (2019), the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2017), Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (2014), Seoul Museum of Art (2014), and Art Sonje Center (2013). Her works are included in MMCA, Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Daegu Art Museum, Amore Pacific Museum of Art in Korea and University of the Arts London, UK, etc.

References

• 정희승, Chung Heeseung (Artist Website)
• 갤러리바톤, 정희승 (Gallery Baton, Chung Heeseung)
• 올해의 작가상, 정희승 (Korea Artist Prize, Chung Heeseung)
• 갤러리 와, Persona (Gallery Wa, Persona)
• 박건희문화재단, 부적절한 은유들 (Parkgeonhi Foundation, Inadequate Metaphors)
• 제12회 광주비엔날레(2018), 정희승 (12th Gwangju Biennale(2018), Chung Heeseung)