Throughout his career, Korean artist Shin Sung Hy (1948–2009) questioned painting's fundamental nature—canvas, support, and paint—through material experimentation that transformed flat surfaces into sculptural objects.
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A Solution to Continuity (Solution de Continuite), 1994, Acrylic
and oil on canvas |
Running September 4 to October 18, 2025, at Gallery Hyundai New York Project Space, the solo exhibition "Body of Work" will showcase how i the late Korean artist's revolutionary approach to painting blurred boundaries between two and three dimensions.
Shin's practice evolved through four distinct periods: the “monochrome hyper-realistic painting” series, jute paintings (1974–1982), “collaged paperwork” series, collage (1983–1992), “sewn-canvas” series, couturage (1993–1997), and “knotted-canvas” series, nouage(1997–2009).
The exhibition focuses on his last two series . In his couturage works, he painted canvases, cut them into strips, then stitched them back together, creating visible seams that became drawings in themselves while casting actual shadows.
His final innovation, nouage (knotting), pushed even further. Shin would paint canvases, tear them into strips, then weave and knot these fragments into dense, net-like constructions. These works defied categorization—simultaneously paintings and sculptures that occupied space with unprecedented authority.
Shin's techniques transformed the canvas from passive
support into active material. Paint became secondary to the physical properties
of torn and knotted fabric, creating "painting-sculptures" that
existed as both visual experiences and physical facts.
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Interlace (Entrelacs), 2003, Acrylic on canvas |
Following Blum & Poe's 2014 "From All Sides: Tansaekhwa on Abstraction" and subsequent exhibitions, Shin's nouage series entered serious art historical discourse, establishing connections between Korean monochrome movements and international minimalist practices.
His questioning of traditional boundaries—why must painting
be flat?—created new territory between media, suggesting that
painting's future lies not in representation but in reimagining the very
materials through which images emerge.
All photos: Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai