From Wednesday, September 2, coinciding with Kiaf SEOUL 2026, major galleries across Seoul will present a diverse range of exhibitions and special programs.

On Tuesday, September 1, “Hannam Night” will take place throughout the Hannam area, offering extended hours and a variety of exhibitions and programs for visitors to enjoy late into the evening.

 

Gana Art

Dawn Ng, After Paradise I, 2026, Acrylic paint, dye, ink and sand on wood, 180 x 120 cm, 70.9 x 47.2 in

 

VENUE         Gana Art
ADDRESS     54, Jangmun-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
PROGRAM    9/1, Dawn Ng Solo Exhibition Opening (Drink Reception)

 

Based in Singapore, Dawn Ng has long explored the traces of time revealed through processes of creation and dissolution.

The artist creates monumental sculptural forms from frozen pigments, allowing them to melt and transform over time.

The resulting traces of color are subsequently translated into paintings, photographs, videos, lightboxes, and works on paper.

Through this process, her works record the gradual disappearance of a material form while revealing the physical residues that persist beyond its dissolution.

The exhibition also marks the first presentation in Korea of Ng’s recent paintings on wood, bringing into focus a dimension of her practice that has received increasing attention in recent years.

 

Johyun Gallery

Kim Taek Sang, Ice Blossom 25-2, 2025, Water Acrylic on Canvas, 122 x 97.5 cm

 

VENUE         Johyun Gallery, Seoul
ADDRESS    B1 The Shilla Seoul, 249 Dongho-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul
PROGRAM  9/1, Opening reception for Kim Taek Sang’s solo exhibition

 

Kim Taek Sang has been experimenting with the diffusion, sedimentation, and layering of color for over three decades through the medium of water.

His process is iterative—mixing trace amounts of pigment into water, pouring the solution onto a canvas laid flat, then allowing it to dry.

Repeated dozens of times, this practice is both ascetic and curative; he has come to describe it as the aesthetics of care.

This delicate layering of sediment on canvas creates subtle interstices that scatter light and permeate the surface with depth and density, evoking nature’s own palette of serene and understated hues. Kim describes his creations as dàamhwa (淡畵 – dàam painting), where dàam carries meanings of clear, delicate, faint, or thin in tint.

Kim’s earliest works in the early 1990s contained commentaries on socio-political issues, but he experienced an artistic turning point when he was captivated by the prismatic waters of the Yellowstone Caldera. Through this encounter, he began incorporating natural elements—water, air, light, and gravity—into his studio practice, developing a distinctive visual language that bridges materiality and the senses, concept and nature.Kim’s works avoid overt contrasts, favoring elusive similarities, subtle oscillations, and minute pulses of light.

While his work is discussed within the lineage of Dansaekhwa, his practice stands apart, reflecting a deeply personal exploration of the relationships between nature, humanity,

medium, and perception. Kim holds a B.F.A. in Painting from Chungang University and an M.F.A. in Western Painting from Hongik University. His works are included in the collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Kumho Museum of Art; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea and Suwon I’Park Museum of Art, Suwon, South Korea.

 

Space Willing N Dealing

Son Jihyung, Leaf, 2026, Oil on canvas, wax, 112x112cm

 

VENUE        Space Willing N Dealing
ADDRESS   4F, 5, Hoenamu-ro 6-gil, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
PROGRAM   9/1, 6:00– 10:00pm

Artist Son Jihyung’s solo exhibition will be presented in dialogue with the vintage furniture of MK2 Showroom. Join us for an evening opening featuring wine, refreshments, and light finger foods.

 

Gallery SP

Chris Rom, The Recurring, Prophetic, Lucid Dreams Of A Sleeping City That Never Sleeps, 2024

VENUE        Gallery SP
ADDRESS  1F, 30, Hoenamu-ro 44-gil, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
PROGRAM  9/1, Open from 10:00 to 22:00

 

To coincide with Seoul Art Week, Gallery SP presents Once Upon Now, a solo exhibition by Chris Ro.

Working across the boundaries of graphic design, animation, and installation, Chris Ro transforms a detached house built in 1996 into a “circuit of presences,” constructing a site of virtual networks. The artist is particularly interested in tracing and documenting what architect Christopher Alexander described as “the quality without a name”—the intangible currents of memory, atmosphere, and affect that become entangled with a building’s functions and structures. In this exhibition, Ro presents an environmental installation composed of graphic works and site-responsive elements, drawing upon the building’s social memories, phenomenological research, and oral histories associated with the site.

During Hannam Night, the exhibition will remain open until 10:00 PM for extended evening viewing hours.

 

Gallery Joeun

VENUE          Gallery Joeun
ADDRESS     3,  Itaewon-ro 55ga-gil, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
PROGRAM    9/1, open from 19:00 to 21:00

 

On an early autumn evening, while the lingering warmth of summer remains in the air,

Gallery Joeun will host a special evening offering an intimate encounter with the painterly world of Seong Ryul.

Gallery Joeun is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Seong Ryul. Through familiar landscapes that have long remained close to us—old alleyways, apartment complexes, watersides, and the shade of trees—Seong Ryul quietly evokes the sensations of passing time and memory. The landscapes in his paintings do not simply reproduce specific places; rather, they hold the subtle textures of light, air, and emotion that may have brushed past us on an ordinary day, gently overlapping with scenes from the viewer’s own memory.

The process by which paint seeps, spreads, and dissolves across the surface becomes a record of time’s passage and of moments gradually fading away. Within his clear, transparent palette and softly diffused compositions reside the sensations of seasons we were unable to fully grasp, along with a quiet sense of longing and lingering resonance that cannot easily be put into words.

In celebration of Hannam Night, Gallery Joeun will extend its opening hours for a special after-hours viewing. Visitors are invited to experience the exhibition in a relaxed atmosphere accompanied by music, with light catering provided throughout the evening. The evening will offer a deeper encounter with the emotions and afterimages carried within Seong Ryul’s works.

As late summer gives way to early autumn, we warmly invite you to spend an evening at Gallery Joeun, lingering within the world of Seong Ryul’s paintings.