Atelier Hermes in Seoul shows art as a personal turning point

Korea Herald

27-07-2025

The exhibition 'The Second Life' runs through Oct. 5 at Atelier Hermes in Seoul.
In its second group exhibition, 'The Second Life,' Atelier Hermes in Seoul has gathered six artists who explore how individual lives are shaped beyond social and political discourse, drawing on personal stories.
Curator Ahn So-yeon said Thursday that the participating artists — Bek Hyun-jin, Lee Yona, Han & Mona, Kim Bo-kyung and Park Min-ha — each took a "slice of life" approach to create new work for the exhibition.
'These days, an overwhelming number of exhibitions are being produced around socio-political issues such as the environment and the climate crisis," Ahn said. "In my case, I wanted to take a different perspective — rather than focusing solely on socially or politically 'correct' themes or collective ideas, I sought to explore how deeply personal issues can expand and evolve within those contexts."
Han & Mona, a duo based in Seoul and Edinburgh, uses flashes of Morse code to express the situations of conflict and negotiation they encounter in cross-cultural engagement.
'During the pandemic, I was stuck indoors and when I looked outside there was a light blinking as though it was crying out to me,' the duo's Yoo Mona said of her inspiration for the piece.
Her partner Ma Hanqing said he was from the Hui community, composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. Most of them reside in northern China, while some of them live in metropolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.
'You might feel Morse code is a bit slow, which was intentional as we wanted to reflect elements from our own way of communication in the work like the tone and glances when we talk,' Yoo said. "As we have different cultural backgrounds and grew up speaking different languages, small cracks or misunderstanding emerge time to time. That is, however, how our communication expands."
Kim, a Berlin based artist who uses knitting, paper weaving and drawing, confessed she almost abandoned her career as an artist, but was able to continue when she came up with her profuse acanthus leaf motif, drawing inspiration from the plant's tenacious hold on life.
Park shows the media installation 'Ghost Anatomy,' where she incorporates a virtual character, Noa, created with AI, into her daily life. The piece looks at the way the character explores its own subconscious.
Lee, who left Busan to live in New Zealand at age 11, translates the tension that she feels between traveling and rootedness with a stainless-steel installation.
Bek, who is a singer, composer, actor and director as well as an artist, presents paintings that depict moments of his current life, now marked by shoulder pain and a changed rhythm as a result.