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Cloud 9

Name: Cloud 9
Start: 2026-08-20
End: 2026-09-19
Location: Goheung Space Astronomy and Science Museum

Free · Goheung-gun Goheung Space Astronomy and Science Museum

Dates: Aug 20 ~ Sep 19
Venue: Goheung Space Astronomy and Science Museum
Area: Gwangju-Jeonnam Special Metropolitan City Goheung-gun
Price: Free
Enquiries: 02-790-5889

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About this event

Gallery Joeun will hold the solo exhibition 'Cloud 9' by exclusive artist Sung Lyul (b. 1994) from August 20 to September 19. This exhibition focuses on recent works that highlight the senses of memory, time, growth, and the fleeting moments that Sung Lyul has continuously explored. Sung Lyul majored in animation at the Korea National University of Arts. In 2022, she won the Grand Prize at the Japan International Manga Award for 'In Summer,' and since then, she has built her own unique artistic world by expanding her experience in composing scenes and delivering stories through images into a pictorial language. Director Bong Joon-ho captivated by Sung Lyul's 'quietly moving' paintings In honor of this solo exhibition, film director Bong Joon-ho expressed his perspective on Sung Lyul's works in the exhibition catalog. Director Bong Joon-ho notes the delicate beauty felt when first encountering Sung Lyul's paintings, along with the hard-to-explain 'subtle anxiety' underlying them. While the dazzling sunlight, cumulus clouds, children, cats, and alleys are beautiful, they simultaneously feel as though they have already disappeared or are about to disappear. In particular, Director Bong Joon-ho says that when he looks at Sung Lyul's paintings, he feels as if "everything in the frame is moving quietly." It is the sensation of sunlight shifting slightly, the shadow of a schoolyard goalpost minutely lengthening, and the shadow of leaves trembling just a bit even on a windless day. This illusion of minute movement creates a unique sense where beauty and anxiety, present and past, coexist within Sung Lyul's paintings. Director Bong Joon-ho concludes his writing as follows: "By 2026, when people see white cumulus clouds in a blue sky, they will think of Sung Lyul's paintings." A painter who depicts 'growth' Sung Lyul's works are often perceived as 'paintings of summer' due to the blue skies, giant white clouds, and dazzling sunlight. However, Jeong Jong-hyo, head of the curatorial department at the Busan Museum of Art, views Sung Lyul's paintings not merely as summer landscapes but as 'paintings about growth.' He explains that for Sung Lyul, summer is not just a season, but the moment when vitality is most exuberant and a time symbolizing human growth. Huge clouds signify the constant flow of time, and light becomes a medium for recalling memories. Ultimately, what Sung Lyul is painting is closer to time, memory, and the process of growth rather than the landscape itself. 'Cloud 9': Happiness, Memory, and Fleeting Moments The exhibition title 'Cloud 9' means a state of bliss, as if floating on clouds—a state of supreme happiness. However, in Sung Lyul's work, happiness does not appear as a grand or dramatic event. Rather, it is closer to moments that were so ordinary they weren't noticed at the time, but are realized to be precious only after time has passed. In her 2025 artist note, Sung Lyul talks about 'moments that make you feel good' while simultaneously feeling that those moments will one day pass. She asks if perhaps life is about caring for and remembering each other in that flowing time. For Sung Lyul, the act of painting is a way of holding onto those passing moments. The variations in color density and traces created by spraying water on the surface and letting the paint spread naturally also evoke the passage of time. As the artist says, even if our lives continue to flow and eventually disappear somewhere, just as every moment inevitably leaves a trace, she leaves those traces on the screen. Therefore, 'Cloud 9' is both a memory of happy moments and a story about the human heart trying to hold, cherish, and remember moments that are disappearing. Sung Lyul uses acrylic gouache to layer thin, transparent colors. Rather than erasing the boundaries and traces naturally created during the paint's drying process, she accepts them as they are, creating depth of air and time through superimposed colors. The artist says she wants to paint the 'air' that exists within the landscape rather than the landscape itself. "Paintings that have begun to travel the world" Gallery Joeun CEO Jo In-sook says of Sung Lyul's work: "When I first met Sung Lyul's work, it was difficult to define which genre of existing art it belonged to, even though it depicted familiar landscapes. However, Sung Lyul's own pictorial language began precisely from that strangeness, and I believe she is now creating her own unique genre based on that language." She added, "Artist Sung Lyul says she hopes her paintings travel the world freely. We look forward to seeing her works move out into a wider world, meeting diverse people, and creating new meanings and values within that." 'Cloud 9' is an exhibition that intensively showcases the pictorial world Sung Lyul has built so far, while also recording the moment an artist's paintings begin a full-fledged journey toward a wider world. Viewers will find themselves recalling a summer day they passed through, a certain place, a person they once loved, and moments already gone, rather than seeking the artist's personal story in the works. In that moment, Sung Lyul's landscape no longer stays within the artist's personal memory. It becomes each person's memory and each person's landscape facing her paintings.

Location

Goheung-gun Goheung Space Astronomy and Science Museum

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Weather

Today(Mon)Partly cloudy · 25° ~ 33° · 30% chance of rain
Aug 25(Tue)Clear · 25° ~ 33° · 30% chance of rain
Aug 26(Wed)Clear · 25° ~ 33° · 30% chance of rain

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