Sunyoung Hwang (b.1988 South Korea)
Sunyoung Hwang's paintings are not intended to be read as recognisable, figurative elements as they do not directly depict anything. Instead, they can be described as a physical manifestation of the unconscious, incoherent flow of metaphorically internalised thoughts, emotions, memories, impressions, and as an attempt to uncover their invisible accumulation that is implicit in, or exists beneath or between layers of what is perceptible.
Exploring physical and psychological layering with an intuitive approach to painting, Hwang overlaps multitudinous layers of different times and spaces, tempos and rhythms, gestures and functions, temperatures and emotions without preliminary sketches, drawings, or photographic references. As the entire process of painting happens only on the canvas, each painting has its own sense of the passage of time, and there comes a time when it seems to reach the end spontaneously. This is when seeing the invisible, touching the impalpable, or hearing silence are made possible through the tangibility of paint on canvas.
Sunyoung Hwang is a London based artist who received her BFA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2012) and completed a MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (2016). Solo exhibitions include: I Feel Guilty About Missing You. Because I Didn’t Feel Guilty About Leaving You, Galerie ERD, Seoul (2019); The Echoes of Forgotten Nights, The Chadwell Award 2016-17 Winner’s Exhibition, Nunnery Gallery, London (2018). Group exhibitions include: Swimming Backwards, Sid Motion Gallery, London, UK (2021); Convergence and Collapse, Grove Collective, London (2021); Antisocial Isolation, The Saatchi Gallery, London (2020); Delphian x Guts, co-curated by Delphian Gallery and Guts Gallery, The Factory, London (2019); Last Night a Brush Saved My Life, The Address Gallery, Brescia (2019); Fresh Paint, Messums Wiltshire, Salisbury (2018). Hwang was longlisted for Jackson’s Painting Prize (2020), selected as a finalist for Young Contemporary Talent (2018) and the winner of the Chadwell Award (2016). She has previously participated in Hangar Residency at Hangar Artistic Research Centre, Lisbon (2019) and SÍM Residency at The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists, Reykjavík (2015).
Yoora Lee (b. 1990 South Korea)
In Yoora Lee's work, the canvas takes on the appearance of images perceived through screens: blue filters and horizontal striations make up the whole of her paintings. Particularly nostalgic for the moments spent as a teenager in front of the television or on the Internet in the 90s, the artist seeks to live these feelings again. A time when South Korea enjoyed great economic prosperity and lived fully in the present without worrying about the future. The artist has vivid memories of this enchanted bubble. By borrowing certain cinematographic processes, such as framing or angles of view, the artist succeeds in transcribing these distant memories, now perceived with great melancholy and bitterness.
Yoora Lee was born in South Korea and lives and works in Los Angeles. Lee graduated with an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020. Solo exhibitions include Finding The Missing Half, T293 gallery, Rome, Italy (forthcoming); Anemone, Another Place, New York, US (2022); Fallen Sakura, PPP (Painters, Painting Paintings), Online, London, UK (2021); Burn In, Jude Gallery Chicago, US (2021). Group exhibitions include YOU ME ME YOU, Nicodim gallery, Los Angeles, US (2022); Seoul Pop up organised by Harper's and The Here and There Co, Shilla Hotel, Seoul (2022); Minutiae, Galerie Mighela Shama, Geneva (2022); Harmonious Arrangement, Half Gallery, Los Angeles, US (2022).
Erin Milez (b.1994 USA)
From the claustrophobic discord of quarantine to overwhelming joy of creating new life, the couples in Milez’s work are living through experiences from her own life and filtered through a language of dance and compression. They are duet partners and day labourers, wrapping around each other with thick limbs and rubberized joints, contorting into and away from each other.
Their compressed domestic space brings both clumsiness and humour to the realities of daily life in sharing and creating a home. At times they illustrate the synchronous unity that might be expected from a long term relationship, and at times tripping over the other in a moment of broken empathy. Their intimacy is joyful and awkward. It is a battle through the difficult moments to create a home. Their work argues for the significance of everyday life and that the menial tasks required by it are not mundane but a tether to creation.
Erin Milez lives and works in Bayonne, New Jersey. She is represented by Monya Rowe gallery, New York. Milez graduated with an MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art in in 2021. Solo exhibitons inlcude My Right, Your Left, Arsenal Contempoary (Online), New York, US (2022). Group exhibitions include Go Figure!, Daniel Raphael Gallery, London, UK (2022); The Bathroom Show, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, US (2022); Talking All Day, Badr Jundi, Gallery, Marbella, Spain (2022); Loved Ones, The New York Academy of Art, New York, Us (2022); Lights, Lorin Gallery, Los Angeles, US (2022).