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PAVILION

Name: PAVILION
Start: 2026-07-24
End: 2026-08-22
Location: Hori Art Space

Free · Jongno-gu Hori Art Space

Dates: Jul 24 ~ Aug 22
Venue: Hori Art Space
Area: Seoul Jongno-gu
Price: Free
Enquiries: 02-511-5482

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About this event

Song Hayoung Solo Exhibition From Boundary To Pavilion Let's imagine the exhibition space as a single structure, a temporary structure erected to exist for a set period without walls or roof being determined. A pavilion is a building that is temporary but has chosen the density of this very moment. As artist Song Hayoung mentions, this new work "starts from the modularity, temporality, layers, and open structure where inside and outside connect with each other that a pavilion possesses." The artist seems to say that painting can exist in that way as well. The artist hopes that while the exhibition is open, rather than hardening into a fixed conclusion, it becomes a place where the viewer's senses and thoughts move in a different way than usual. Forming that open structure is the core topic she continues to explore: 'boundary'. Like sitting in the backward-facing seat of a train and facing landscapes already passed, the artist captures this 'boundary' mostly during transit rather than as a special place. Landscapes gazed at with a time lag feel different depending on direction and speed. The outer walls of buildings, reflections in glass windows, temporary structures at construction sites, and traces of time remaining on old surfaces brush past and enter the eye. To her, these moments are closer to a state where time, direction, surface, trace, light, and reflection overlap, rather than fixed landscapes. What she captures in the city is not a specific place or scene, but the very process by which senses appear, disappear, and remain as traces within it. The boundaries captured in this way contain various expressions. While there are points that divide clearly like road lines or building corners, there are also points where division and meeting happen simultaneously, such as places where light and shadow slowly overlap or moments where colors gradually change into different colors. If the former is the city's artificial and orderly boundary, the latter is nature's fluid and sensory boundary. On the screen, these boundaries are translated in different ways. Clear boundaries are placed as lines, seeping boundaries cross as planes push and pull each other, and points are placed where light briefly settles or gaze stops. Ultimately, before being a line dividing something, a boundary is the core guiding her work: a contact point where different things meet and form relationships. If they had not been divided, they would never have encountered each other in the first place. Separation is not a lack of relationship, but a prerequisite for a relationship to be established. What she transfers to the screen is closer to the layers of speed, distance, temperature, and emotion that, while being inside the landscape, are rarely revealed, rather than the scenery right in front of her eyes. Instead of transferring visible scenes as they are, the artist translates the invisible realm of sensation and perception hidden within them into the languages of color planes and structures. This topic has been revealed through various works over a decade. In the early 2010s, the artist began her work by drawing images of figures and objects on circular frames or wooden furniture. The circular frames of 《Hot Place》(2013) and narrative scenes placed on benches and tables in 《Time to leave》(2014) still retained a deep interest in stories and objects rather than concepts. What the artist focused on next in the process of cutting down stories was not the narrative on the object, but the frame itself that contained that narrative. Around 2017, the screen became drastically restrained, and the palette narrowed to blue and achromatic tones. The diamond canvas of 《Boundary》(2017) and the screen with floating rectangles show that she began to treat the shape of the canvas itself as a matter of boundaries. Dealing with flat painting for a long time, the question naturally followed for the artist: 'How far can the surface of a painting expand?' If boundaries are viewed as fluid relationships rather than fixed lines, the thought reached that the surface of a painting could also move with surrounding space without being trapped in two dimensions. This idea pushed paintings out of the canvas in 2020. In 《Gaps (Things Shining in Between)》(2020) with neon lighting, and 《Beyond the times》(2020), monochrome panels and tile pieces lean against the space. As conditions such as light, reflection, movement, and the position of viewers passing in front of it flowed into the work, the painting transformed into a structure reacting differently every time. The idea that impressions change whenever viewing angles, postures, and body positions change, and embracing that change itself as part of the work, runs through this period. It was close to an attempt to gauge the breadth paintings can encompass. Since 2022, the artist has chosen high-saturation colors while exploring a modular format where small units gather to form a single whole. Like 《Contraction and Expansion》(2022), they connect along the wall like ribbons, or the geometric pieces of 《Reassemblage》(2023) repeat in grids. The afterimages of light and movement created by fragments repeating on the grid shift the artist's interest from the structure itself to the light phenomenon created by that structure. In 2024, light shed metaphors and was drawn in direct forms. Through various media and configurations, such as converging white triangles in 《Flare & Highlight》(2024) and recent works realizing canvases actually moving by motors 《Sequence: Overlay》(2025), she experimented with how far the surface of painting can expand. Behind all these expansions lies an attitude toward restraint. Although heterogeneous scenes such as architecture, music, urban scenes, and contemporary speed are mixed throughout the work, those scenes are not directly revealed on the screen. The work remains in the form of simple and restrained color field abstraction. The artist's attitude of establishing concepts and structures prior to executing the work leads this process. When multiple layers of embodied sensation are compressed into a small number of colors, planes, and structures, how this will be conveyed to the viewer is the point where she lingers longest in front of the screen. The time of layering is also close to a practice of physically learning that restraint. Once colors are set and the brush begins to move, one lingers on the screen without distractions amidst repetitive actions. While continuing brushstrokes with an even rhythm, the depth and density of color and the aimed texture gradually accumulate within the screen. After all these experiments, this exhibition is a return to the oldest condition of painting facing the viewer standing in front of the wall. This return reveals the questions accumulated so far in their most refined form. In the new works, colors have noticeably decreased. Works in the yellow series are closer to the sensation of opening and passage. Yellow, simultaneously embracing light, signal, and ventilation, varies in temperature and density depending on combination and arrangement. In the orange series, that sensation appears in a further compressed and physical state. While warm, it more clearly reveals tension and structure within the screen with strong density. These colors are fished out from everyday sensations, urban surfaces, shaking boundaries, and contemporary rhythms. There are no fixed rules for setting colors. There is only the time of endlessly re-examining within the screen what temperature, density, and tension are created when that color is placed next to another color. That process is ultimately no different from the attitude of endlessly expanding boundaries anew rather than defining them as a single conclusion. As planes mixed with pearl and silver are added here, what looked like a single color from the front approaches with a different temperature if you move your position even slightly. The physical steps made by multiple layers of canvases piled up are also based on the same logic. Layers are a way in which color and structure accumulate in layers rather than physical thickness, while simultaneously being another condition for painting to stretch toward space. The composition of the exhibition is also more restrained than before. Unlike previous exhibitions where works were detached from the wall using devices like aluminum profiles or motors and space was actively pulled in, this time the most traditional method of painting where the canvas is hung on the wall and the viewer stands in front was chosen. However, this simplicity is not empty. Within limited colors and elements, the balance and tension created by color planes and lines are tuned even more sensitively. The work suggests viewing it up close, from the side, and then from afar. Approaching, you notice the steps where color planes meet, the density soaked into the surface, and the impression of colors shifting according to the direction of light. Stepping back, a moment comes when those individual sensations integrate into a single structure and rhythm. The screen does not conclude at a single point, but continuously changes according to the viewer's position and movement. When the exhibition ends, this temporary structure is dismantled without a trace. However, the sensation that was open between color and plane for a while will continue in their own ways.

Location

Jongno-gu Hori Art Space

Get directions on Kakao Map

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