SHUMU

Shumu was born in 1994 in Seoul, South Korea. She obtained her BFA in woodcut and copperplate print from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2017. She currently lives and works in Seoul. Shumu’s work contemplates the profound stillness that dwells on the boundary between the real and the unreal, a quietude where presence lingers without explanation and forms reveal themselves in moments of suspension. She engages with woodcut as a daily ritual, exploring the material nature of the wood rather than its function as a printing plate. Rooted in the techniques of printmaking, Shumu pushes her control over the pressure and angle of carving to an extreme. Extremely fine incisions form countless delicate lines, which are layered with dark ink to create the distinctive texture of the wood’s surface. Drawing from the innate flow of woodgrain and the physical traces of her brush on wooden panels, her realistic renderings of animals emerge almost paradoxically like wandering spirits. These creatures, both corporeal and spectral, inhabit quiet yet slightly uncanny spaces. The figures are presences that are felt deeply yet remain elusive, occupying the threshold between body and soul, the delicate gap between the self and the surroundings, the presence and the absence.