Daegu Arts Center’s “2024 Young Artists of the Year” selected artists Gyuho Kim, Sora Park, GIAHN (Yoonki Ahn), Miran Woo, and Wongi Lee (from left). © Daegu Foundation for Arts and Culture

Daegu Arts Center has selected five emerging artists as the “2024 Young Artists of the Year.”

Now in its 27th edition, the annual “Young Artist of the Year” program discovers emerging artists based in the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region, supporting their creative activities and contributing to the creative development of the regional art scene.

This year’s open call drew applications from 57 young artists, from which the final five were chosen after review: Gyuho Kim (sculpture/installation), Sora Park (video/installation), GIAHN (Yoonki Ahn, video/installation), Miran Woo (painting), and Wongi Lee (painting).

Gyuho Kim finds beauty in the repetition of organic forms, whether regular or irregular, and expresses the invisible temporality of form through three-dimensional works using 3D modeling. In 2017, he won a special prize at the MBC + Korea Figurative Sculpture Grand Exhibition.

Sora Park focuses on social issues arising in an age of scientific and technological development and digital media environments. In particular, she visualizes speculative situations, figures, and products that could plausibly emerge in the future based on science-fictional imagination. In 2021, she was selected for the SOMA Museum of Art Drawing Center Archive and the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in the UK.

GIAHN (Yoonki Ahn) captures cultural phenomena and social structures observed in his surroundings, expressing them through photography, installation, and performance. He explores themes such as education, play, movement, and mobility using diverse materials and media.

Miran Woo focuses on subjective consciousness and perception in the process of seeking the essence of existing beings. Working with wood as her primary material, she paints fleeting and ever-changing moments, addressing the fundamental existence of nature through intuitive and subjective impressions.

Wongi Lee tells of confessional pain rooted in his personal emotions and experiences through painting. Recently, he has been exploring drawing methods that contrast dense images with variations of space, tone, density, and touch, while employing purely formative images on canvas. In 2017, he was selected as an emerging artist at Soosung Artpia.

The selected “Young Artists of the Year” will receive support for exhibition preparation, including production grants, catalog publication, exhibition space, and critic matching. After about seven months of preparation, their exhibition will be held from October 31 to December 14, 2024, across Exhibition Halls 1–5 at Daegu Arts Center.

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