"Roses & Thorns"

"roses & thorns": 3 week residency program in seoul

Roses & Thorns (Installation View), Realation Space, Seoul, 2022

After a decade, Heo returns to his mother’s land– South Korea. Filled with energetic inquisition interwoven with an undertone of melancholic notes, this new body of work depicts the harmony between Han (한) and Jeong (정) from a Korean-American perspective.

Heo shares “Han is not just a feeling of indescribable sorrow or grief -- it’s a core characteristic that all Korean people are born with. Meanwhile, Jeong is the shining opposition -- it’s an internal declaration of camaraderie through empathy and kindness. It’s meant to offset the Han.” Although this belief is unique to South Korea, Heo optimistically sees them as a universal sentiment.

Heo materializes this harmony with the use of his idiosyncratic multi-media image-making practice as there is no readily understood English equivalent to Han & Jeong. Starting the conversation in the United States, the artist then transports these new works overseas to metamorphosize them into completed paintings.

This solo exhibition, “Roses & Thorns”, is heavily inspired by the Korean sentence, 정과 한의 신비로운 조화, which translates to “the mystical harmony of Jeong and Han”, Heo believes that one cannot be shown or even exist without the other. Understanding this, the artist deconstructs these notions to showcase his vision of his liminal space.