Artist

SUN WOO

Biography

Sun Woo, born in 1994 in Seoul, South Korea, now lives and works in Seoul. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2017. As an immigrant to Canada and a digital native, the artist interweaves migrating experiences across geographical and cultural boundaries to explore the concept of belonging within the real and virtual space, addressing the collective memory of folklore and mythology. Moving beyond realistic inference, Sun Woo fabricates extreme perils and animated mechanical objects in her paintings and sculptures, wittily wielding together themes of dream, pain, and symbiosis while investigating the gradually disintegrating physical body in the age of hyperconnectivity. Through smell, temperature, and humidity provoked by her photorealist approach, these sensory perceptions activate a shared familiarity and intimacy, both at present and from afar, within the disassociated bodily contexts. Sun Woo’s works relentlessly insert heightened perceptual nuances to propose a possibility which summons and amalgamates the dislocated senses across time and within the corporeality created by the artist, evoking visceral feelings that turn the suffering of one’s immurement to the spectacle of disembodiment subjectivities. Recent solo exhibitions include: Swamps and Ashes, Make Room, Los Angeles, 2023. Recent group exhibitions include: Cities in the Room, Seoul Museum of Art, 2023; Materi-delia, Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, 2023; Wetting Your Whistles, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 2023; Second Life, Lyles & King, New York, 2023; Myths of Our Time, Thaddaeus Ropac, Seoul, 2023. Sun Woo is the recipient of Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture in 2023 and Art Change Up from the Arts Council Korea and Ministry of Culture in 2021. Her works are in the collections of The Perimeter, London and Museu Inimá da Paula, Belo Horizonte.

Sun Woo, Silent Companions, 2022, acrylic and colored pencils on canvas, 198 x 290 cm, 78 x 114 1/8 in
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Solo and two person exhibitions

2024    Portals, Gallery Vacancy at Frieze London, UK
2023    Swamps and Ashes, Make Room, Los Angeles, US 
2022    Invisible Sensations, Carl Kostyál, London, UK 
2021    A Castle Made of Sand, ATM Gallery NYC, New York, US
2021    You Have a New Memory, Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong, CN
​2021    Superior Mirage, with Hyun Bhin Kwon, Cylinder, Seoul, KR
2020    Wishing Well, FAS (Foundwill Art Society), Seoul, KR​


Group exhibitions

2024    Nova Libertatia, The Orange Garden at Forum Studios, Rome, IT
2023    Cities in the Room, curated by Nowk Choe, SeMA Bunker, Seoul Museum of Art, KR
2023    Materi-delia, curated by Taehyun Kwon, Ulsan Art Museum (UAM), Ulsan, KR
2023    Wetting Your Whistles, curated by Severin Dünser, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, KR
2023    Second Life, with Ben Gould and Taha Heydari, Lyles & King, New York, US
2023    Myths of Our Time, with Heemin Chung and Zadie Xa, Thaddaeus Ropac, Seoul, KR
2022    Memory of Rib, curated by Jeppe Ugelvig, N/A, Seoul, KR 
2022    Taxonomies of Imagination, curated by Andrew Sendor, Make Room, Los Angeles, US 
2022    Through a Glass, Darkly, Carl Kostyál, Milan, IT
2022    XY, Rundgænger by Schierke Seinecke, Frankfurt, DE
2021    Sunset Valley Village, curated by Joori Lee, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, KR
2021    Women in Paris, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, FR 
2021    Halfway Through, Fragment, Moscow, RU
2020    Home Alone, ATM Gallery NYC, New York, US
2020    untact, curated by Jin Meyerson and Andy St. Louis, P21, Seoul, KR
2020    Room Service, with Gallery Chosun, SOLO SHOW: ON, Seoul, KR
2020    The New (Sur)Realism, Fragment, Moscow, RU
2020    EDEN, curated by Linda Mognato, Harlesden High Street, London, UK
2018    Painters by Painters, curated by Jaemin Hwang, 2/W (Weekend), Seoul, KR
2017    Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York, US


Collections

​The Perimeter, London, UK
Museu Inimá da Paula, Belo Horizonte, BR

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