Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Hong has held solo exhibitions including 《Study Layers》 (68projects, organized by KORNFELD, Berlin, 2024), 《ENFOLDING THE AIR》 (Prompt Project, Seoul, 2023), 《Flowing Layers》 (Pipe Gallery, Seoul, 2022), 《Gazing Between Layers》 (Gallery BHAK, Seoul, 2022), and 《Layers》 (Hakgojae I Design Project Space, Seoul, 2020).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Hong has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《All makes sense》 (ARTSIDE Gallery, Seoul, 2025), 《APRICITY》 (Frieze No.9 Cork Street, London, 2024), 《Flip Over》 (ThisWeekendRoom, Seoul, 2024), 《Instead of Result, a Process》 (M5 Gallery, Tokyo, 2023), and 《Veil of Thought》 (Ilwoo Space, Seoul, 2022).

Awards (Selected)

Hong was selected as an artist for the 2024 8th HOBAN Emerging Artist Awards (H-EAA), and was previously named a New Hero by Public Art Magazine in 2020.

Residencies (Selected)

In 2023, Hong was a resident artist at 68projects in Berlin.

Collections (Selected)

Hong’s works are held in the collections of the PARKSEOBO FOUNDATION and Art Space Hohwa.

Originality & Identity

Seong Joon Hong’s practice begins with an inquiry into the “layer” of painting—not only as a formal structure, but as a condition of perception. In his early works, he introduced photographic images produced in the digital environment into the pictorial frame, examining how visual experience is constructed. Starting with his first solo exhibition 《Life between line》(2014), and more explicitly in 《Code against Frame》(Laheen Gallery, 2019), he treated the canvas as a window or frame, embedding additional frames within it to question the act of seeing itself.

From this point, Hong’s focus shifted from the origin of images to the way images are recontextualized within painting. His long-term “IMG” archive—composed of photographs he personally captured—was selectively translated into works such as 1501(2019) and 1505(2019). Through painterly criteria such as color, form, and surface, private memories and viewpoints were transformed into public images. Here, the layer begins to function as a stratification of memory and time.

In 《Layers》(Hakgojae I Design Project Space, 2020), Hong turned toward subjects such as the sky and the sea—phenomena that resist total perception. Composed of innumerable layers of air and water, these landscapes are condensed into thin skins of paint, emphasizing the gap between what is seen and what is cognitively grasped. The ‘Study Layers’(2020) series further developed this approach by arranging scenes according to degrees of mnemonic clarity, presenting painting as a sedimentation of memory.

In more recent works, the character of the layer becomes increasingly light and transparent. In 《Flip Over》(ThisWeekendRoom, 2024) and the ‘Layers of the Air’(2024) series, soap bubbles appear as motifs that visualize ephemeral phenomena produced by air and light. Rather than depicting objects, these works focus on the moment in which perception itself emerges.

Style & Contents

Hong’s practice moves fluidly between two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional works, often employing opposing methodologies for each. For flat works, he fabricates three-dimensional structures first and photographs them as a basis for painting; for sculptural works, he begins with abstract sketches that are later materialized. This dual approach is evident in 《Flowing Layers》(Pipe Gallery, 2022) and 《Gazing Between Layers》(Gallery BHAK, 2022).

Layers are constructed through a wide range of materials and processes: airbrushed pigment applied without friction, hanji and fabric layered onto the canvas, paint that seeps beyond the edges and solidifies, and fluorescent pigment on the reverse side casting reflected light onto the wall. Study Layers 40, 41, 42(2022) unfolds these material strata across a single extended surface, evoking geological sedimentation. In contrast, Condensed Layer(Wave_1)(2022) compresses these layers into a sculptural form.

The ‘Study’ works more directly intersect flatness and volume. Study 6413(2020), for instance, references a telescopic field of vision through circular acrylic components, expanding painting into a physical structure. Here, painting is treated not only as an image, but as an object bound to embodied perception.

In the recent ‘Layers of the Air’ series, material presence is reduced to subtle shadows and chromatic shifts. In works such as Layers of the air 21(2024), the layer is no longer an accumulation of matter, but a visual phenomenon generated by light and air. While maintaining the format of painting, Hong extends perception toward a more tactile and sensory register.

Topography & Continuity

Hong ‘s work neither strictly adheres to representation nor abstraction. Rather than emphasizing gesture or material excess, he approaches painting as a perceptual system—one that links layers to visual cognition, temporality, and memory. While his work absorbs elements from photography, digital imagery, and installation, it consistently maintains painting as its central framework.

The transition from the ‘Study Layers’ series to the ‘Layers of the Air’ series demonstrates a gradual shift from dense material accumulation to light, transparent phenomena. This evolution does not signal a rupture, but a recalibration of painterly materiality. The layer remains a central concept, while its mode of operation expands from physical substance to sensory condition.

This trajectory has extended beyond Korea through his residency at 68projects in Berlin (2023) and the exhibition 《Study Layers》(68projects, 2024). As the conditions of visual culture are increasingly shared across regions, Hong’s inquiry into perception and painting resonates within a broader international context.

Moving forward, Hong’s practice is likely to continue refining the boundaries between vision and touch, flatness and spatiality, while remaining grounded in painting. His sustained exploration of layers—as time, sensation, and perceptual structure—functions as a method for rearticulating painting as a viable contemporary medium on a global stage.