Kwon Sejin Solo Exhibition: Quiet Landscape
Feb. 6, 2026 – March 7, 2026
Artside Gallery (15, Jahamun-ro 6-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea)
Kwon Sejin poses a fundamental question to his audience: "Is what I am seeing the actual landscape, or is it a projection of my own mind?" For Kwon, the act of painting and the experience of viewing art are synonymous with a spiritual discipline—a way of perceiving the world through the lens of the heart and gazing deeply into the inner self.
His solo exhibition, Quiet Landscape, opening at Artside Gallery this February, charts an artistic odyssey that begins with landscapes of memory and evolves into a state where the world and time are quietly condensed.
Upon entering the first floor, viewers encounter a breathtaking expanse of water composed of thousands of small, monochromatic fragments.
These ripples—evoking raindrops falling on a lake and the shimmering light of yoonseul (sparkling water)—are based on photographs where the artist captured the fleeting movements of nature.
While the technique of assembling 10cm square hanji (traditional Korean paper) pieces initially began as a practical solution for working in confined spaces, it has evolved into a unique formal language.
By deconstructing and reassembling the temporal layers of photography, Kwon creates a physical manifestation of time on canvas.
In the transitional space between the first floor and the basement, a depiction of a trophy catches the eye. Once a relic from a closed school in the artist's memory, this object serves as a bridge connecting personal nostalgia to a universal layer of time. To Kwon, objects are not mere still lifes; they are independent universes where past experiences are compressed and stored.
The trophy stands as the symbolic object that first awakened this sense of "compressed time" within him.
The basement gallery serves as an expansive arena for the artist's exploration of memory and time. This floor features the Memory Scape series alongside his latest Quiet Time works. Kwon collects "dead images"—anonymous, contextless visuals drifting through the digital ether—and meticulously reproduces them based on CMYK color values.
His process involves layering white paint over these precise recreations, partially erasing the image.
This is not an act of mere deletion, but a way to create a physical "thickness" through a fog-like veil—a materiality that smooth surfaces of digital screens cannot possess.
By blurring the clarity, he breathes a sense of "body" and "temporality" back into these fading images, inviting a profound sense of nostalgia.
In his newest series, Quiet Time, Kwon’s gaze descends into an even deeper state of immersion.
Flowers and objects positioned in darkness maintain their forms but exist in isolation from their everyday contexts.
Here, the surrounding void is not a vacuum; it is a deliberate "space of the mind" that simplifies the viewer's gaze and allows for absolute focus.
In this realm of light and shadow, the subjects do not explain or symbolize; they simply exist in a state of perfect stillness.
Kwon Sejin’s paintings represent the "thickness of time" accumulated on thin layers of paper—a metaphor for a life woven through chance and necessity.
From the ripples of a single raindrop to the silence of an object in the dark, this exhibition offers a journey toward total serenity, allowing visitors to encounter their own inner landscapes and sink into a moment of profound meditation.
