G Gallery is pleased to present Pastel, Bullet, Beautiful Fingers, the solo exhibition of Hwang Sueyon from August 21 to September 21. Hwang Sueyon is a leading contemporary female sculptor who conveys her messages through unfamiliar physical phenomena that arise from the direct experience and collision of various materials. This exhibition, centered around Hwang's ongoing paper collage series Small and Sharp, which she has been working on since 2020, captures the moment when paper fragments, coated with countless layers of graphite to achieve a metallic texture, transform into a solid, sharply defined form. The exhibition has been organized in collaboration with curator Hyejung Jang, who has closely observed Hwang Sueyon's work for several years. Alongside the exhibition, they will jointly plan and publish an artist book titled Name, featuring the Small and Sharp series.
Pastel, Bullet, Beautiful Fingers constructs a house within the exhibition space, temporarily housing the Small and Sharp series inside, thereby inverting the exhibition space and revealing the earnest wishes and secretive, meticulous time preserved within each work. Hwang Sueyon, having observed and heard about the cruel and terrifying events continuously occurring to vulnerable individuals around the world, applied dark graphite to paper with desecrating force, almost piercing through it, or tearing it apart. She then processed the paper into shapes resembling commonly used sharp tools—kitchen utensils, household tools, surgical scalpels, sculpting tools, writing instruments—and densely layered them to create individual works. Through this process, Small and Sharp encapsulates a tribute to the suffering and sacrifice of fragile beings, as well as the fear and anger associated with it.
Around the house, where no part - walls, doors, roof or floor - is intact, a large, unidentifiable sculpture stands idly, exuding an ambiguous yet undeniable force. This sculpture, with its aggressively distorted, deformed and enlarged detergent handle and drill bit, exists like a ghost or shadow, unable to be clearly identified as something that will protect and rescue or threaten and harm. Pastel, Bullets, Beautiful Fingers is a spectacle of ambiguous, sloppy and incomplete identities coming together to briefly preserve their unique delicacy and fragility, in a constant attempt to resist the halting of their movement towards an unknown direction.
*The above text was excerpted from the exhibition preface of Pastel, Bullets, Beautiful Fingers (written by Jang Hyejung).__
Hwang Sueyon graduated with a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the Seoul National University of Science and Technology's Department of Fine Arts and has held solo exhibitions at the Kumho Museum of Art, Dimensionvariable Space, Doosan Gallery, Doosan Gallery New York, and Hakgojae Design | PROJECT SPACE. She has also participated in various group exhibitions at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, the SeMA Bunker, the National Museum of Contemporary Art Gwacheon, and the Kumho Museum of Art. In 2016, she presented her work at the 11th Gwangju Biennale, and has been a participant in residencies at the SeMA Nanji Residency, the Doosan Residency, the Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, and the Kumho Art Studio.
Since opening in 2013, G Gallery has established itself as one of Korea's leading contemporary galleries by discovering talented young Korean and international artists and presenting a wide range of curated exhibitions. Based on active communication with artists and a deep interest in sculptural discovery, G Gallery has been organizing a unique program that introduces art from various fields such as painting, video, and installation. In addition, by presenting their work at art fairs both domestically and abroad, the gallery provides young artists with a foundation for forming diverse connections.
