Chung Heemin, School of Visual Arts, Presents “Garden of Turmoil”

Chung Heemin, a visual artist from the Department of Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts, is presenting a solo exhibition titled “Garden of Turmoil” at Thaddaeus Ropac, on view until February 7, 2026.

Chung explores the experience of virtual and physical worlds blending in an era when people perceive reality through technology. As if touching images online, she recomposes them through visual and sculptural languages.

Her works begin with collecting images of nature – such as oceans and clams – from online sources. These images are manipulated with 3D digital modelling software and then placed on canvas or transparent sheets of gel medium. Making use of the gel medium’s viscosity, Chung creates multiple layers and creases on the surface to shape a unique sense of volume. Rather than a simple optical illusion, the surface evokes a body with physical skin and palpable depth.

The exhibition title, “Garden of Turmoil,” refers to the anxiety and instability of contemporary life mediated through smartphones. Chung understands virtual space as an artificial ecosystem in which images are replicated and transformed – a kind of garden. “What we experience as ‘nature’ is merely nature within the artificial world,” she notes. True to this idea, digitally processed bronze works resembling tangled tree branches, such as Found Pulled and Folded 1 and 2 (2025), generate a tension between order and entropy.

Chung Heemin obtained a BFA in Painting and Sculpture from Hongik University in 2012 and an MFA in Visual Arts from K-Arts in 2015. In 2022, she exhibited at the Busan Biennale and was selected as a recipient of the 13th Doosan Artist Awards by the Doosan Yonkang Foundation. Chung’s works are included in the collections of major institutions such as the Art Bank at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Seoul Museum of Art, and the Kumho Museum.