featured artists

the art of observation

For Hyewon Na, art is a bridge between contradictions. As a transnational artist, she exists in a constant state of in-betweenness, ever the observer, always a stranger. This distance, rather than alienating her, sharpens her ability to see complexity in the everyday.

Through her paintings, Hyewon captures unexpected yet deeply symbolic moments and intimate objects. Museums and flea markets, two seemingly opposite spaces, hold the same sense of intrigue for her. While one preserves the past with authority, and the other scatters it with haphazard abandon, both serve as archives of contradiction where love and violence, greatness and mediocrity percolate and posture. Flea markets, too, embody a similar paradox, where discarded objects and forgotten histories resurface, waiting to be reinterpreted. The objects Hyewon discovers in these spaces often become metaphors in her work, standing in for grander statements about memory, identity, and belonging.

Hyewon’s experiences across cultures have heightened her sensitivity to the way groups form and function. She is fascinated by the intricate social dynamics of families, old villages, and communities with rigid internal structures. As someone who has left her homeland yet remains a stranger in her new environment, she sees the world through the lens of a perennial outsider. This stance allows her to observe with an objective and probing gaze, revealing the silent tensions, unspoken narratives, and fragile connections in communities otherwise out-of-bounds.

Rather than emphasizing cultural divides, Hyewon leans further into universality. She portrays objects with a sense of psychological depth, transforming them into shared experiences. Her Museum Study series, Still-Life series, and Family Photo series transcend representation, manifesting as expressions of raw human emotion. Here, a museum artifact, a household item, or an old photograph becomes a vessel for longing, nostalgia, and self-awareness. In her paintings, personal possessions cease to belong to one individual alone. Instead, they become universal mirrors, reflecting back the memories and emotional fields of anyone who happens to pass them by.

Hyewon’s choice of artistic techniques are equally unbound by rigid categories. Though Western audiences often remark on her extensive use of black and her method of mixing thick layers of oil with paint, these techniques feel instinctive to her. After all, in traditional Korean painting, black is not unfamiliar; it is foundational. In the end, Hyewon works with oil on canvas as readily as Korean ink on hanji paper. This adaptability reflects her broader artistic philosophy, where boundaries between cultures, materials, and disciplines willfully blur and dissolve.

By documenting the little details, Hyewon makes the unseen visible. Through her paintings, contradictions are not resolved but explored, not simplified but given space to breathe. In this way, she reminds viewers that identity is not a destination set in stone, but an open-ended conversation that each of us, in our own way, is already a part of.

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