Sae Yeoun Hwang
Sae Yeoun Hwang
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Woman Guarding the Oysters, 2019
Oil on canvas
70 x 95 cm
About this work
This work depicts a female figure curling around a stack of oysters. The components of the image are highly symbolic, with the oysters representing sexuality, and the contorted subject alluding to the strain of protection. The exact nature of what the figure is guarding against is left unsaid and undefined, as if an intimate thought held by only the subject herself.
About Sae Yeoun Hwang
Sae Yeoun Hwang (b. 1994) is an artist living and working between London and Seoul. She gained her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2020. Through her practice, she creates non-linear visual stories, and questions the role of humour and how it functions. She has featured in a number of shows across the UK, including: CIRCA, London, FOLD Gallery, London, and Hockney Gallery, London.
Hwang’s work explores the thin line between personal experience and universality. It is a collection of memories, experiences, and imagination, exploring both micro and macro aspects of self and life. Growing up in multiple different cultures, the artist describes often being seen as an Asian immigrant in Western eyes. Through living as the perpetual other in society, she gained a certain perspective on these cultural formations. Such experiences also made her look back on her childhood memories in order to relate back to her own culture. Through this, the artist developed a particular interest in narrative and comedy, as understanding the joke, and further, the context, reveals the viewer’s socio-economic, cultural and political understanding, and questions the root of the joke itself.
Education
2020 Royal College of Art, London, MA Fine Art
2017 Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, BA Fine Art
Selected Exhibitions
2020 no-longer-being-able-to-be-able, curated by Hang Li, Skelf (online)
2020 CIRCA 2020 Showcase, Piccadilly Lights, London
2020 50/50, FOLD Gallery, London
2020 RCA 2020, Royal College of Art, London
2020 Snapshot, Hockney Gallery, London
2019 NYAP 50th Anniversary Exhibition, NY ARTS PROGRAM, New York
2019 Fetari Series 1: Womxn of Colour, The Jago, London
2019 Patch of Green in London, Cookhouse Gallery, London
2017 Memoria: Senior Exhibition, Leeds Gallery, Richmond, Indiana
2016 118th Juried Annual Exhibition of Richmond and Area Artists, juried by Mark Ruschman, Richmond Art Museum, Richmond, Indiana