David Heo is an image maker best known for executing his idiosyncratic vision through painting, collaging, and seamlessly combining mediums and symbologies. His multidisciplinary practice engages in creating anecdotes inspired by ancient Western mythologies, hyper-saturated 90s animation, recalling nostalgia, and the dualities of hybrid culture.

​

Formally, Heo’s approach to practice echoes Deconstructivist tendencies which relate to the fragmentation of surfaces and structures. Recent motifs found in the artist’s works refer to the harmonies and dissonances between two uniquely South Korean identity-based political beliefs: Han (한) and Jeong (정). As a Korean-American, Heo believes they are synonymous with one another and revives his vision of liminal space by flowing between representation and abstraction.

​

In favor of disjointed narratives, Heo’s distinctly bold style is heavily informed from his interpretations of the Asian-American experience and its intersection with American popular culture, iconography, and western art history. Chopped, skewed, and presented back out again -- viewers experience Heo’s thought process as he deftly samples between his American and South Korean identities. The cross-pollination of conversations fuel his practice through these conceptual underpinnings. 

​

​

​

​

David Heo (b. Acworth, Georgia) received his MFA in 2018 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He creates artwork that flirts with a variety of genres, including large-scale paintings, works on paper, mural paintings, and brand collaborations. Heo employs elemental materials – acrylic, paper collage, and crayon – to create an intricate interlacing of layers. Through his many influences, such as short stories, Cy Twombly, and anime, Heo intimately improvises between abstraction and biography which synthesizes his lived experiences.