Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Nakhee Sung has held various solo exhibitions at Pibi Gallery, Gana Art, Perigee Gallery, DOOSAN Gallery, One and J. Gallery, Art Sonje Center, and Gallery Hyundai.

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Nakhee Sung has participated in group show of major art museums including Ilmin Museum of Art, Modern Art Gallery, Milan, CAN Foundation, DOOSAN Gallery, HITE Collection etc. In 2005, Sung was selected as an artist of the Korean Pavilion Artist at the 51st Venice Biennale.

Residencies (Selected)

Sung has partaken in residencies in and out of Korea including MMCA Residency Changdong, Seoul, Doosan Residency Program, New York, Ssamzie Space Studio Program, Seoul, Cité International des Arts, Paris, etc.

Collections (Selected)

Sung’s works are included in the collections of the National Museum of Contemporary and Modern Art, Seoul, the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, the Leeum-Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, LG, Seoul, the UBS Art Collection, Switzerland, and more.

Originality & Identity

Nakhee Sung’s paintings begin with the fundamental components of painting—points, lines, and planes. She expands these basic formal elements into a visual language that renders emotional flow and psychological vibration visible. As seen in Untitled(2006) and Frequency(2006), the organic rhythm of lines and colors on the canvas evokes a musical cadence that guides the viewer’s emotions. As the artist describes her practice as “suggestively visualizing a space for emotion,” the elements within her paintings respond to her inner sensibility, proliferating, dissolving, and transforming into visual language. These abstract structures reflect her psychological journey while constructing an ‘inner landscape’ where perception and emotion intersect.

Her perspective gradually expands beyond the pictorial surface into spatial extension. In the solo exhibition 《between you and me》(DOOSAN Art Center, 2010), her wall drawings liberated painting from the flat plane, transforming the entire exhibition space into an emotional field. This act can be seen as projecting the artist’s inner sensibility into external space—a visual embodiment of the physical resonance of emotion.

From the mid-2010s onward, Sung’s thematic focus evolved into what may be called “musical painting.” The ‘Polyphonic’(2016) series visualizes the process by which independent lines and colors form a harmonious ensemble, akin to the structure of polyphonic music. This musical structure continues through the ‘Transpose’(2018), ‘Sequence’(2019), and ‘Portamento’(2024–) series, revealing a shift in her sensibility and thought toward greater equilibrium and contemplation.

Ultimately, Sung’s central concern lies in “the process through which inner vibrations expand into external order.” She translates her sensory rhythm into abstract structures, exploring the relationships among pictorial elements—between emotion and order, freedom and balance—thereby redefining the essence of painting itself.

Style & Contents

Sung’s work has always begun as a formal experiment in painting. In early works such as Untitled and Passage(2006), dynamic lines, points, and planes overlap in multiple layers to generate movement. The brushstrokes of this period serve as direct expressions of emotion, characterized by spontaneity and rhythm. However, by the time of her solo exhibition 《Modulate》(Perigee Gallery, 2020), she began to restrain this rhythm, focusing instead on the stratification of color fields and the structural balance of composition.

The ‘Transpose’ series exemplifies this transition. Straight and curved lines are arranged in a refined composition, while the distribution and intervals of color fields are carefully calibrated. As suggested by the musical term “Transpose,” the artist transforms her earlier sense of freedom into a structured system through modulation and recalibration. In the subsequent ‘Sequence’ series, seamlessly connected planes of color resemble digital pixels, yet retain traces of brushstrokes that reveal the temporality of painting.

In her works of the 2020s, the color fields grow larger, and the notions of “gravity” and “balance” take precedence over movement. The “invisible force” the artist has referenced becomes more tangible. The pictorial elements that once pushed and pulled against one another now coexist like gravity itself, as the color fields establish a stable spatial harmony through slow but deliberate calibration.

In her recent solo exhibition 《Short Sleeves》(PIBI Gallery, 2023) and the ‘Portamento’ series, organic curves and soft color planes take center stage. Replacing the tense compositions of earlier periods, natural rhythm and restrained energy—flowing smoothly like water—dominate the canvas. Rather than depicting an eruption of emotion, Sung visualizes a state of sustained resonance in which emotion quietly lingers.

Topography & Continuity

Nakhee Sung is regarded as an artist who has established a distinctive language that unites “musical rhythm and psychological space” within the realm of contemporary Korean abstract painting. Beginning from an intuitive energy, she has continued to explore the pictorial balance where color, structure, emotion, and order intersect. Her paintings are not expressions of emotion per se, but processes of constructing the spatial order in which emotion resides.

Her artistic trajectory—spanning ‘Polyphonic,’ ‘Transpose,’ ‘Sequence,’ and ‘Portamento’—has gradually evolved toward a meditative and structural sensibility. If her early flowing abstractions embodied sensory spontaneity, her recent works capture a contemplative rhythm that visualizes internal breathing. This transformation reflects not merely a stylistic shift, but the artist’s matured approach to exploring the perception of time through the language of painting.

Through major exhibitions such as the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale(2005), 《Modulate》(Perigee Gallery, 2020), 《Resonance》(Gana Art, 2022), and 《the gradient》(Noon Contemporary, 2025), Sung has consistently explored the expanding possibilities of painting. Her works are housed in prominent collections, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Seoul Museum of Art, Leeum Museum of Art, and the UBS Art Collection, attesting to the universal resonance of her pictorial language.

Grounded in her fundamental inquiry into the relationship between color and rhythm, Sung continues to capture moments when sensory vibrations transform into order, demonstrating that painting remains a living field of thought and perception.