Yoonhwan Bae

딥다이버 포스터_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

Space K Seoul is pleased to present Deep Diver, a solo exhibition by Bae Yoon Hwan (b. 1983), on view from August 14 to November 9, 2025. Bae Yoon Hwan has expanded his focus from his personal anxiety to global humanitarian crises through the narrative-driven paintings. In this exhibition, the artist further develops the narrative of our time using a variety of media, including painting, drawing, installation, and video. Bae Yoon Hwan’s work and the exhibition layout rendered in black draw the audience into a deep immersion within his inner world, as if they are diving into the deep sea.

Installation View (1)_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

Bae Yoon Hwan has developed a painting practice that unravels personal anguish and the symptoms of our era through allegorical narratives. While his early works were autobiographical, his focus has since expanded to broader social issues such as climate change and war. In this exhibition, Bae distills the fragments of his felt emotions into a black narrative, stripped of color. In the series of black paintings, feelings of anxiety and resistance are captured in meticulous detail. Meanwhile, the Circus series employs distorted lines, disparate shapes, and warped structures of time and space to reveal the unfamiliar emotions that arise in the absence of a narrative. This reflects the artist’s intention to move beyond formal experimentation and the shift toward a more concise and direct mode of conveying emotions. The artist describes the exhibition as a journey from ‘complex and clear forms’ to ‘simple and amorphous forms.’ The exhibition title, Deep Diver, alludes to the depth of emotions the artist confronted while painting his subjects, inviting the audience to approach the abyss and partake in his journey. The exhibition features the following key works. 

Seat Belts for All Seats_2025_Acrylic on canvas_242.8 x 325 cm_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

The title of Seat Belts for All Seats (2025), borrowed from an everyday slogan, symbolizes the anxiety of an era that cannot guarantee safety as well as the tension just before a collision. The heterogeneous forms hauled up by the net-pulling figures represent a clash of different visual languages, while the rapid gestures and overlapping lines express an unstable flow of emotions. Bae Yoon Hwan creates a record of our precarious times by painting a landscape defined by the collision of different artistic languages and a world struggling to hold onto its shattered pieces.

Oasis-365. 3_2025_Acrylic on canvas_112.1 x 145.5 cm_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

The Oasis-365 series (2025) is a collection of works that makes prominent use of color. Set against a black background, these paintings depict squid fishing, where squid splatters colored ink and the sailors are covered in it. The artist explains that the series originated from the imaginative premise that with every burst, the sailors would be covered in black ink until they eventually disappeared, becoming one with the color of the world (black). However, in the actual work, the ink is transformed into a rich palette of colors. The sight of sailors drenched in multi-colored ink unfolds like a fantasy. In doing so, it speaks to the recurring situation where the more we try to erase something, the more prominent it becomes. The title reflects this daily cycle of delusion and an oasis that can never be reached and may not even exist.

Cradle_2025_Acrylic on canvas_224.2 x 436.5 cm_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

Cradle (2025) and We’re Good (2025) are works that symbolically address the balance and instability of life. Cradle depicts a boat rocking from side to side, capturing the human struggle of constantly trying to maintain balance on the edge of life. Meanwhile, We’re Good portrays miners in a treacherous cave, continuously carving, digging, and breaking something. This scene overlaps with the artist’s own reality of creative production. Through these works, Bae Yoon Hwan asks what we are pursuing within an imperfect life. Both pieces utilize black-toned canvases, repetitive lines, and dramatic compositions to amplify the sense of anxiety. In doing so, they reveal that the very essence of what it means to be alive is this oscillation – a constant vibration between chaos and balance, collapse and recovery.

We’re Good_2025_Oil pastel on canvas_250 x 1,000 c_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

This exhibition marks a notable shift from the artist’s previous narrative-centered painting toward more abstract and sensory expression. The artist deconstructs familiar forms and narrative structures, directly conveying fragments of emotion and the currents of unstable desire through line, surface, and contrast of light and dark. Particularly in the Circus series (2025), Bae visualizes the sense of form itself through distorted perspectives and asymmetrical compositions. He is experimenting with a move from the complete, narrative-driven compositions of his earlier works to more amorphous compositions. The artist states that by not explicitly defining the figures who live through these chaotic times, he intends for an unfamiliar emotion to linger on the canvas.

Installation View (2)_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

In addition, the exhibition features over 100 drawings that encapsulate Bae Yoon Hwan’s artistic journey. He captures the landscape of our times in the Matisse Left a Clue series (2025), which is notable for its simplified style influenced by Henri Matisse; the Sunscreen series (2025), which critiques people’s attitudes toward specific
events; the SIREN series (2025), which depicts people treating warning alarms as mere background noise; and the Strike Twice series (2025), which meditates on the human desire through portraits of miners with gold embedded in their faces.

Installation View (3)_Courtesy Space K Seoul and Junho Lee

Deep Diver marks a significant turning point for Bae Yoon Hwan, where he experiments with his painterly language and suggests how painting today can connect with reality and be experienced on a sensory level. The work reflects the artist’s commitment to observing, connecting, and expressing even amidst an unsettling reality, reaching deep into the inner self. Indescribable sensation, fragmented memories, and the instability of human desire run through the artist’s works and the exhibition. It is an attempt to gaze deeply into the anxiety and instability of human existence, inviting the audience to confront their own inner selves.

SpaceK Seoul
32, Magokjungang 8-ro, Gangseo-gu, Seoul
02-3665-8918

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