Vitality in Shifting Time and Images... Hong Woojin's 'Wingbeat' Exhibition

Exhibition at Cut the Cake in Mapo-gu
Through November 22

Hong Woojin's solo exhibition 'Wingbeat' is currently on view at Cut the Cake in Mapo-gu, Seoul. The artist has long focused on the close relationship between the methodology and content of painting, exploring how to express the temporality and sensory experiences of the contemporary era. As the title suggests-'Wingbeat'-the exhibition investigates how subtle sensory tremors can disrupt the layers of time and image.

Exhibition poster for Hong Jujin's solo exhibition 'Wingbeat'. Courtesy of Cut the Cake

Inspired by an experience of hearing the sound of ocean waves while in the mountains, the artist expands the moment of sensory illusion-when different senses overlap-into painting. The sound of leaves brushing together evokes the sea of the past, digital images, and memories of the future all at once. This experience transforms a single scene into a sensory passage that contains multiple timelines.

In the series 'Hearing the Sound of the Sea in the Mountains,' Hong Woojin layers and separates hanji (traditional Korean paper), inscribing traces of time onto surfaces infused with ink and color. In this process, the forms are erased, but their afterimages remain subtly, presenting viewers with a surface that has become a 'living skin' where past and present intermingle.

The title piece of this exhibition, 'Wingbeat,' expands such painterly exploration into a spatial installation. The artist adds wax to hanji to create the texture of a translucent shell, and suspends fragmented images in midair, orchestrating scenes that vibrate like fluttering wings. Here, painting is no longer a static surface, but breathes as a living entity where light and shadow, material and immaterial, intersect.

In previous works such as 'Hauling Up,' 'Gestures for Remembering,' and 'Boomerang,' Hong Woojin has deconstructed the layers of digital images, exploring the structure of 'returning images.' Deepening the concepts of deconstruction and circulation, the artist presents a contemporary painting practice in which images are stripped away and layered anew, revived with fresh sensory experiences.

The exhibition demonstrates that painting remains a living, moving organism through the 'wingbeat of images' that recalls vanished sensations. Within these subtle tremors, viewers can hear the 'waves in the mountains' and feel the 'breath of images.' The exhibition runs until the 22nd.