Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

JOO has held solo exhibitions including 《Crack》 (Mihakgwan, Seoul, 2025), 《Nomel’s Tracking Log》 (SeMA Storage, Seoul, 2023), 《Put My Finger in the Portal》 (The Great Collection, Seoul, 2022), and 《REVERSE EDGE》 (Space illi, Seoul, 2019).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

JOO has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Drawing Growing》 (Art Space Boan, Seoul, 2025), 《Point of Utterance》 (The Reference, Seoul, 2024), 《Defragmentation》 (Mullae Art Factory Gallery M30, Seoul, 2023), 《Hackerspace》 (TINC, Seoul, 2023), 《2022 Posthuman: Story Telling for Earthly Survival》 (National Asian Culture Center, Gwangju, 2022), and 《DOOSAN Art Lab Exhibition 2022》 (DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, 2022).

Residencies (Selected)

JOO SLA was selected for the Seoul Museum of Art’s Emerging Artist program (2023) and DOOSAN Art Lab (2022), and in 2022 she was an artist-in-residence at the ACC Residency of the National Asian Culture Center.

Originality & Identity

JOO SLA’s practice begins from the narrative structures of subcultures such as animation, comics, and games, exploring points where the boundaries between reality and the virtual become entangled and collide. As seen in her early solo exhibition 《REVERSE EDGE》(Space illi, Seoul, 2019), she visualized the unstable states of beings positioned outside boundaries, based on a misreading of Kyoko Okazaki’s “RIVER’S EDGE.” Here, the boundary does not function merely as a spatial division but as a structure that separates perception and conditions of existence, and the artist focuses on the errors and confusion that arise within this gap.
 
This line of inquiry expands through its connection with “female hero narratives.” As seen in Lure(2021), Soul Fishing, and Three Hollow Devil Heads, JOO SLA focuses on characters whose bodies freely transform and traverse dimensions, assuming that the human body and identity are not fixed but exist in a mutable state. This functions as a metaphor for the ways in which the body and self are reconstructed within a digital environment.
 
In the solo exhibition 《Put My Finger in the Portal》(The Great Collection, Seoul, 2022), this interest concentrates on the “moment of dimensional transition.” The portal is set as a device that connects different worlds and a boundary where perception is transformed, and through Put My Finger in the Portal(2022), the viewer is placed within a sensory experience of passing through this boundary. What is important here is not the movement itself, but the indeterminate state that occurs between the moment before and after the transition.
 
In 《Nomel’s Tracking Log》(SeMA Storage, Seoul, 2023), this inquiry develops around a more specific object—the lemon. As seen in One day, the lemon yellow disappeared(2022), the artist traces the transformation process of an object and reveals its material, social, and informational layers. The disappearance of the lemon’s color extends beyond a simple physical change into the structures of distribution, datafication, and posthuman conditions, presenting an understanding that both objects and humans are entities capable of transformation.

Style & Contents

JOO SLA’s work is composed through the juxtaposition and combination of various media, including animation, 3D printing, silkscreen, and installation. She does not fix an image within a single medium, but instead moves it from video to flat surface and then to three-dimensional form, using the process of translation between media as a core structural principle. This approach reveals that an image does not exist as a singular original, but rather within a process of repeated transformation and recomposition.
 
For example, images generated in Put My Finger in the Portal are transformed into the ‘Image Layering’(2022) series, and further expanded into 3D printed sculptures such as Messenger(2022) and Thermoplastic Bodyies(2021). In this process, even the same image acquires different material qualities and sensory effects depending on the medium, allowing the viewer to experience a single form existing across multiple dimensions.
 
Spatial construction is also a crucial element. In 《Put My Finger in the Portal》, the exhibition space is designed like a labyrinth, encouraging the viewer not simply to observe the works but to move through and experience them. In particular, Messenger is installed in a way that penetrates walls and ceilings, physically disrupting spatial boundaries and transforming the exhibition space itself into a dimensional structure.
 
This formal approach expands further in 《Nomel’s Tracking Log》 into a more narrative configuration. The exhibition, composed of drawings, animation, text, and 3D objects, is structured as a tracking narrative through which the viewer moves while following the transformation of the lemon. In this process, the lemon’s label information is converted into digital data, revealing the transition of objects from material to information. In this way, JOO SLA’s work simultaneously addresses not only transitions between media but also transformations between material and data, and between reality and the virtual.

Topography & Continuity

JOO SLA has expanded the combination of subcultural narratives and digital media into the structural concept of “dimensional transition,” rather than remaining at the level of simple image appropriation. The perception of boundaries in 《REVERSE EDGE》, the experience of transition in 《Put My Finger in the Portal》, and the narrative of transformation in 《Nomel’s Tracking Log》 can be seen as variations of the same line of inquiry approached through different methods.
 
While many contemporary artists utilize digital images or 3D media, JOO SLA’s work differs in that it places greater emphasis on the processes of movement and transformation rather than the final image. For instance, works such as Messenger and Thermoplastic Bodyies do not function as mere sculptural objects, but as entities that contain states derived from video and data.
 
She also addresses objects and the human body on the same level, presenting the potential for transformation as a shared condition. The lemon in One day, the lemon yellow disappeared and the bodily sensation in GUMMY(2023) both become subjects of change and recomposition, forming a perspective that moves beyond human-centered thinking. While this resonates with posthuman discourse, it is distinguished by being articulated through concrete cases and sensory experience rather than theoretical explanation. JOO SLA’s practice does not remain fixed within a specific medium or a completed narrative, but unfolds fluidly by connecting different layers of images and sensations, continuously expanding through processes of movement and transformation.