THEO_Seoul : Hojung Kim x Minjung Key : Things That Hold: Layer by Layer 

(25. 6. 26. – 7. 26)

THEO_Jakarta : Yejoo Lee : Shifting Layers, Breath of the layer

(25. 6. 28. – 7. 27)

[Things That Hold: Layer by Layer]

Time, emotion, and sensation may appear immaterial and fleeting, yet they undeniably leave a residue—on the surface of matter, or perhaps somewhere beyond it.

In this two-person exhibition, Minjung Key (b.1987) and Hojung Kim (b.1988) explore the materialization of time and perception, seeking not to represent what is visible, but to evoke what is unseen, and what has been layered over time.

Minjung Key(b. 1986) is an artist who has reinterpreted the notion of yohbaek (the sense of emptiness or negative space) through the combination of hanji (traditional Korean paper), ink, glass, and epoxy. She expands the sentiments of traditional East Asian painting and a distinctly feminine sensibility into a contemporary visual language. Her works involve a series of performative gestures—drawing, cutting, allowing materials to seep—through which she renders the invisible substances of air and the rhythms of the body perceptible. Rather than “painting through depiction,” her practice can be described as “painting through traces.” It is both a questioning of what painting fundamentally is, and an expansion of contemporary painterly practice.

Hojung Kim (b.1988), on the other hand, explores the painterly and abstract potential of ceramic—a traditional craft medium—treating its curved surfaces like canvases. Through the alchemical interplay of fire, pigment, time, and touch, her works evoke what might be called a tactile vision. At the core of her practice lies the color blue—a hue symbolic of both the sea and sky, transcendence and stillness. Her moon jars and bulbous vessels carry within them the emotional depth and layered memories of time, made visible through repetition and sensitivity of touch.

Both artists share a commitment to the idea of the layer—not only as a formal device, but as a means of recording the accumulation of sensory experience. Whether in the grain of hanji, the translucency of glass, or the textured curve of ceramic, each surface reveals emotions sedimented through time—inviting the viewer to sense them both visually and, almost unconsciously, through a tactile intuition.

What is particularly striking is that the materials employed—paper, glass, ceramic—are all fragile and impermanent by nature. Yet it is precisely this fragility that imparts to their work an extraordinary density of feeling and recollection. Their material vulnerability becomes a paradoxical strength, inscribing the depth of time and memory more clearly than resilient surfaces ever could. In this sense, both artists exemplify how contemporary women artists are reconfiguring traditional materials into languages of nuanced resilience and poetic force.

What is particularly striking is that the materials employed—paper, glass, ceramic—are all fragile and impermanent by nature. Yet it is precisely this fragility that imparts to their work an extraordinary density of feeling and recollection. Their material vulnerability becomes a paradoxical strength, inscribing the depth of time and memory more clearly than resilient surfaces ever could.

In this sense, both artists exemplify how contemporary women artists are reconfiguring traditional materials into languages of nuanced resilience and poetic force.

Shifting Layers, Breath of the Layer

Yejoo Lee(b.1995)’s work always begins with a “mass.” The amorphous plaster takes shape through the artist’s gestures, breath, and pressure from her fingertips. What emerges is not a solidified sculptural body, but a being that exists in a fluid and unfinished state—standing, lying down, or leaning as if caught between actions. What she seeks is not the form itself, but the edge that surrounds the form—the sensation of a boundary.

This solo exhibition at THEO Jakarta presents not only Lee’s sculptural works but also a new series of reliefs. These reliefs rise subtly from the surface, unfolding the skin of sculpture and drawing breath as they take form. Like peeled shells of a once-standing mass, they possess a quiet yet undeniable sense of flow. The artist calls this phenomenon Shifting Layers, Breath of the Layer. These reliefs seem to emerge from sculpture, not as flat representations, but as accumulated traces—vibrations, breaths, and afterimages held in form.

Lee once wrote that she “gropes in search of an edge,” articulating the tactile sensitivity of her process. On the surface of a form that appears seamless and impenetrable, she forges edges—folding, pressing, and flattening until layers appear. This exhibition visualizes those layers as they form rhythms and drift through time and space—a landscape of sensory strata where sculpture transforms into relief and the boundaries between them dissolve.

Now, standing before her sculptures and reliefs, viewers are prompted to ask:

Is this the outside, or the inside?

A beginning, or a residue?

Shifting Layers, Breath of the Layer is an exploration of a new sculptural language—one that exists not in fixed form, but in flow and breath.