Since 1997, South Korean artist Hong Seung-Hye has employed digital programmes to create lyrical pictograms and geometric arrangements. Her most recognised work, the ongoing series titled 'Organic Geometry' (1997–present), reconciles the seemingly disparate notions of the organic and the geometric through the fluidity and repetition of forms.
Read MoreHong studied at Seoul National University, where she began by painting in a realistic style and, after encountering the work of Henri Matisse in her third year, increasingly experimented with colour and abstraction. Upon graduating in 1982, she moved to Paris in 1983 and studied for three years at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts under the tutelage of abstract painter Olivier Debré.
Hong collaborates with a range of artisans, including mock-up factories, printers and furniture designers, to realise her work in three-dimensional form. The breadth of her sculptural works encompasses wall paintings, tiles, installations and furniture. Ever expanding her practice, Hong frequently revisits her earlier work and explores different digital programmes.
In the early 1990s, Hong was inspired by the Supports/Surfaces art movement, which emerged in late-1960s France with an emphasis on the rigorous examination of the formal properties of painting. Hong led her own experiments with paper collage, altering the physical conditions of paper to create new planes and shapes. The artist's concern with shape and space, whether flat or three-dimensional, foreshadows her later work in the digital realm.
Hong ventured into the digital space in 1996 by drawing basic shapes with the paint tool on her first computer. The discovery of digital drawing was followed by Adobe Photoshop, whose functions allowed her to easily create patterns. From then on, the pixel became Hong's primary tool with which she began to explore digital structures.
Hong treats the organic and the geometric as symbiotic ideas, approaching the monitor as 'a huge natural world'. In this space, the pixel functions in the same way as a cell that multiplies into an organism, an idea that provided the title 'Organic Geometry' for the body of works that soon followed.
The 'Organic Geometry' series was first exhibited in Hong's solo exhibition by the same title at Kukje Gallery, Seoul, in 1997. The work Organic Geometry (1997), consisting of 100 pale-to-dark blue wood-framed serigraphs, formed a large-scale wall installation, while other works—also titled Organic Geometry—were framed in circular or rectangular mounts, depicting line drawings based on the square pixel as the smallest unit.
Organic Geometry has since been the site of Hong's extensive experiments with the square and the space it generates. The aluminium plates titled Organic Geometry (2000), for example, reimagine her 1997 wall paintings by pushing the squares beyond the frame. In the inkjet print Organic Geometry (2014), window-like shapes dot the expanse of black, some arranged into a neat pattern and others into apparent disorder.
Reworking or incorporating parts of her previous work into later creations is a running characteristic of Hong's practice as with such works as Digital Drawings (2006) and Debris (2008). By deconstructing the shapes that she had thought complete, Hong reconsiders the life of the square and the limitless possibilities for revitalisation.
Reminiscence, Hong's solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery in 2014, also consisted of prints, sculptures, and furniture that reference her earlier works.
In her solo exhibition Over the Layers II at Kukje Gallery in 2023, Hong presented works made using Adobe Illustrator—a shift away from the raster-based graphics of Photoshop to vector, which enabled her to experiment more freely with shape and scale. Compared to her previous work, the wall paintings, sculptural installations, furniture, and multimedia installations in Over the Layers II are characterised by brighter colours and more curves as opposed to straight lines and right angles.
Solo exhibitions include: Over the Layers II, Kukje Gallery, Seoul (2023); Human Nature, The Great Collection, Seoul (2020); Round & Square, Severance Art Space, Seoul (2019); Point·Line·Plane, Alcheon Art Museum of Gyeongju Arts Center (2018) and SeMA Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (2016); My Garage Band, Space Willing N Dealing, Seoul (2016).
Group exhibitions include: Lau, gh-; Nothing Needs to be a Tragedy, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul (2021); remote(control), GALLERY2, Jeju Island (2021); Artists in Their Times: Korean Modern and Contemporary Art, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon (2020); Geometry, Beyond Simplicity, Museum SAN, Wonju (2019); NERIRI KIRURU HARARA, Mediacity Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art (2016).
In 2023, Hong Seung-Hye was announced as one of 13 artists chosen for the Korean Artists Abroad programme supported by Korea Arts Management Service.
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2023
