Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Beginning with 《LA-Sung》 (Yangju 777 Gallery, Yangju, 2017), Hyeree Ro has continued to explore themes such as the memory of migration, the clash between body and language, and the materiality of objects through solo exhibitions including 《Jinhee》 (Project Space Sarubia, Seoul, 2022), 《Niro》 (Canal Projects, New York, 2024), and 《August is the cruelest》 (DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, 2025).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Ro participated in numerous group exhibitions at both domestic and international institutions, including 《Art Spectrum》 at Leeum Museum of Art (2022), as well as Ilmin Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Cheongju, HITE Collection, and Akiyoshidai International Art Village. More recently, she has actively engaged in collaborative and cross-cultural projects with multinational artists at venues such as AHL Foundation Gallery (New York), Billytown (The Hague), Sulim Cube (Seoul), and Subtitled NYC (Brooklyn).

Awards (Selected)

In 2020, she received the Susan H. Whedon Award from Yale University. She was later selected for several international support programs, including the Emerging Artist Grant from the Leema Holtmann Foundation (New York, 2023) and the Jenny Crane Grant (New York, 2024). Ro has also been a recipient of multiple grants from the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture and the Arts Council Korea.

Residencies (Selected)

Ro was selected as a resident artist at the Nanji Residency of the Seoul Museum of Art for 2025. She has also completed residencies at the NAS Foundation International Residency (Brooklyn, 2022), the Field Projects Ceramic Residency (Brooklyn, 2023), and the Yangju 777 Residency (2017–2018), among others, both in Korea and abroad.

Originality & Identity

Hyeree Ro centers her artistic practice on themes of transnational movement, linguistic shifts, and cultural discontinuities experienced during her upbringing. Her objects, ranging from everyday materials to discarded items, exist in abstract forms without specific signification, serving as flexible foundations for narratives constructed through bodily and verbal engagement.​

She articulates the concept of "the possibility of being both this and that, rather than either this or that," focusing on the multilayered potentialities sensed at the boundaries of identity rather than dividing it dichotomously. The narratives within her works are not complete stories but rather accumulations of fragmented memories and emotions, leading to situational experiences generated through the interplay of objects, bodies, and language.

Style & Contents

Ro's work intertwines objects, the body, and language to construct performative narratives. Initially, she experimented with bodily movements within confined spaces, adapting to objects' structural limitations. From the 'LA-Sung' series (2016–2017), she transitioned into a performer who manipulates objects and articulates stories within stage-like settings.​

Utilizing readily available materials such as wood, plastic, stones, seashells, and food shells without painting or alteration, she employs cutting and joining techniques. This approach of using "unprocessed materials" and "unprocessed language" characterizes her stylistic identity. Movements are not trained techniques but responses to the body's inherent rhythm within constrained environments, and speech comprises flows of interrupted and colliding words that evoke emotions. The interplay of English, Korean, and Japanese languages to modulate meanings and emotional amplitudes is also a significant component of her work.​

Topography & Continuity

Ro's practice exhibits continuous evolution centered on spatiality and mobility. The five performances in the 'LA-Sung' series progressively expanded the structure of object-body-language, intertwining family narratives, immigration experiences, and social conditions. In the 2022 exhibition 《Jinhee》at Project Space Sarubia, she visualized the senses of animals, humans, and virtual characters through objects, exploring relationships between sensory perspectives and spaces.​

In Falls (2022), presented at the Leeum Museum of Art's 《Art Spectrum》, she wove intersections of modern history and personal narratives through structures and performances, suggesting connections between sculpture and events. The 2025 solo exhibition 《August is the Cruelest》 at DOOSAN Gallery featured distorted sculptures of travel and mobility symbols like cars, tents, and kayaks, encapsulating narratives of movement and settlement, relationships and disconnection, memory and loss. Ro continues to experiment with differing temporalities of performance and installation, drawing static objects into the temporal realm of events.