[This Week's Exhibitions] Hoin Lee & Momin Choi Duo Exhibition 'Trace', Goyona Jeong Solo Exhibition 'Performing Private Moments', and More

Editor's NoteThis week’s recommendation features a selection of diverse and captivating exhibitions available across the country, curated for you to enjoy over the week.

Choi Momin, Room with Christmas Tree, 2026, Oil on canvas, 56×68cm. Nook Gallery

Hoin Lee & Momin Choi Duo Exhibition 'Trace'

Time does not vanish immediately on the canvas. The duo exhibition ‘Trace’ by Hoin Lee and Momin Choi at Nook Gallery explores what painting leaves behind, what it conceals, and the density it attains in the process. Hoin Lee erases and covers traces of previous images to create landscapes that straddle the boundary between figuration and abstraction. The canvases, bearing titles such as Blue Night, White Room, or Yellow Road, resemble landscapes but resist being pinned down to any specific place. Layers of old traces left beneath the surface and new fields of color laid on top intertwine, making the passage of time the very structure of the painting.

Hoin Lee, Yellow Road, 2026, Oil on canvas, 41x31.8cm. Nook Gallery

Momin Choi paints scenes inside rooms. These are not just interiors, but spaces where the body lingers and thoughts gather. Objects and figures in works such as Yellow Room, Room with Christmas Tree, and Puddle do not form a clear narrative, but instead evoke the humidity and unease of daily life. The process of layering and deconstructing turns these private spaces into stages for memory and sensation. While the two artists begin from different directions, both ask how the traces left on the canvas transform time into the material of painting. Featuring around 20 new works, the exhibition runs through the 27th at Nook Gallery in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Perfect Moment, 2025, oil on canvas, 130.3 x 193.9cm. Payto Gallery

Goyona Jeong Solo Exhibition 'Performing Private Moments'

In Goyona Jeong’s paintings, private moments are no longer truly private. The solo exhibition ‘Performing Private Moments’ at Paeto Gallery questions how life in the social media era is staged, and how that performance is reflected in a person’s expression and posture. Rather than present themselves directly, the figures in her paintings are captured through body parts—hands, legs, a side profile, or a gaze in the mirror. The celebratory scene in Perfect Moment, the camera in Gaze Toward Me, and the hands and feet in Intended Coincidence all appear intimate, yet are unmistakably staged. The artist captures this uneasy distance not as quickly consumed images, but through the slow, tactile surface of oil paint.

Time Passing By, 2025, oil on canvas, 117.0 x 80.5cm. Panto Gallery.

Although the canvases appear soft and sophisticated, the emotions within are not simply or beautifully resolved. The serene body in Like an Uneventful Afternoon, the black cat and hand under the sofa in Invisible Gaze, and the cropped face in Hidden Words feel like glimpses into someone’s everyday life, yet ultimately reflect the viewer’s own gaze back at them. Goyona Jeong goes beyond translating the sparkle of digital images into painting, revealing the solitude and exhaustion of self-performance that such images conceal. The exhibition runs through the 27th at Paeto Gallery in Jung-gu, Seoul.

Exhibition view of Yasuhito Kawasaki's solo exhibition 'Blue Blue Bear and Green, Blue Blue Bear and Sea.' Rina Gallery

Yasuhito Kawasaki Solo Exhibition 'Blue Blue Bear and Green, Blue Blue Bear and Sea'

The blue bear may appear cute, but the cuteness is quietly unsettling. Yasuhito Kawasaki’s solo exhibition ‘Blue Blue Bear and Green, Blue Blue Bear and Sea’ at Lina Gallery Seoul re-examines how humans view nature through recurring motifs of blue bears, apples, birds, boys and girls, and tigers. The canvases are clear and simple, like illustrations from a children’s book, but the questions they pose are serious. Who do the sea and forest, river and mountain, truly belong to? Before labeling the bear that appears in human territory as an ‘intruder,’ the artist asks who first changed the forests where the bears once lived.

Exhibition view of Yasuhito Kawasaki's solo exhibition 'Blue Blue Bear and Green, Blue Blue Bear and Sea' at Rina Gallery.

Kawasaki’s paintings and ceramics begin with self-portraiture but are not confined to a single face. The blue bear represents a childlike sensibility lingering in the artist’s inner world, or perhaps another name for the innocence that humanity has lost. The bluebird suggests happiness found close at hand, the apple stands for intuition before explanation, and the tiger embodies the gap between what one wishes to become and what remains out of reach. Rather than setting nature against humanity, the exhibition presents scenes in which different forms of life briefly share the same canvas. Featuring both paintings and ceramics, the exhibition runs until July 11 at Lina Gallery Seoul in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.