Seo Wonmi, Cowboy Whistle, 2023, Oil pastel on linen, 72.7 x 91cm © Laheen Gallery
Laheen Gallery is pleased to present Cowboy Whistle, a solo exhibition by Seo Wonmi (b. 1990) from September 21 to October 28.
Seo Wonmi’s paintings incorporate memories, anxiety, and trauma from personal and social experiences into narratives. In a series of works such as and , the artist uses the materiality of oil paint to capture narratives of death and history.
In this exhibition, Seo Wonmi will present a new series of paintings. In the series, the artist focuses on ‘mal’’. ‘Mal’ is a homonym in Korean meaning ‘horse’ or ‘word’. Seo Wonmi focuses on ‘mal’’ as a medium to convey stories, and not only to refer to the ‘word’, but also to the ‘horse’, expanding the scope of the work. In this context, the cowboys who frequently appear in the series function as the artist’s other persona as a skillful manipulator of ‘mal’. Also, unlike her previous works, which focused on the exploration of limited themes such as death and anxiety, in this exhibition, the artist intends to conduct a more formal experiment by paying attention to the painting itself. The artist and the image are repeatedly chased and pursued by the ‘mal’ in the work.
