Photo by Soo Hong
Mono Chameleon
Europa Gallery, Seattle, WA, Mar 6, 2025
Mono-Chameleon explores urban identity through street culture and shared public spaces. I am drawn to the language of the streets—bridges, windows, and roads—where graffiti and signs reveal human presence and interaction. These spaces become a canvas for exploring how people leave their marks and navigate identity in the city.
Monochromatic colors symbolize individual identity—perhaps even my own. This series experiments with photography, collage, and painting to create layered compositions that shift between chaos and harmony.
Photo by James Arzente
SOO HONG
NYB Gallery, Kirkland, WA, Jan 18- Feb 15 2025
A line is a dot that went for a walk. — Paul Klee
Adapting to a changing world once felt possible. Now, only fleeting connections remain, leaving me longing for belonging. In my new series, I use dots and fluid lines to express the loneliness that comes from these changes. Inspired by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Modernity, this exhibition reflects my journey through a fragmented world. I use abstraction to explore fluid states and the search for stability in an ever-changing landscape.
Photo by James Arzente
LOOK at this LOOK at that
Chatwin Arts gallery, Seattle, WA, Feb 1- Mar 2, 2024
Soo Hong explores the interplay of perspectives through diverse styles and forms of expression, examining cultures as pathways to understanding the world. After spending an extended period away from her home country, she developed a genuine curiosity for her Korean culture and began to adopt a tourist's perspective. In her expansive polyptych painting titled "Whispers," she employs a translucent surface painted on both sides, moving beyond the traditional techniques of Korean silk painting. Hong seamlessly integrates traditional and contemporary painting techniques, creating a fluid beauty that transcends cultural and temporal boundaries. The layers of brushstrokes, vibrant stains, or distinctive marks intentionally blur the image, leaving a deliberately chaotic impression and compelling the viewer to take a closer look.
Photo by James Arzente
Meditative Desire
Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA, April 6 - 29, 2023
Her exhibition, focuses on Mandalas, commonly used as aids to meditation, which represent a spiritual journey through their symbolic structure.
"For years, Soo Hong’s paintings resembled explosions. . . . But the pandemic has nudged Hong into a more meditative state and, eventually, mode of painting. While Hong’s new paintings still have a polychromous and musical quality, she contains her painterly eruptions within the confines of the mandala, an ancient diagram used as a meditative aid in many cultural and spiritual traditions. Hong says this new grid-like restriction has been invigorating, nudging her to find new ways of expressing herself."
— Margo Vansynghel, March 29, 2023, The Seattle Times
Photo by James Arzente, Winnie Westergard
Metaplay
AMcE creative arts, Seattle, WA, Jan 27 - April 3, 2022
Her show Metaplay includes large-scale paintings inspired by quotidian moments, internal dialogues and cultural queries expressed through vibrant color and brushstroke energized with a cadence the artist likens to her life’s soundtrack. The contiguous pieces in Metaplay riff on the tempo of music as it relates to her thought patterns and processes.
To accompany the show, DJ Sharlese of Seattle radio station KEXP has created a playlist inspired by Soo’s paintings that will be made available through the gallery.
Temporarily Ambiguous
BLUR / Linda Hodges Gallery Oct 3 - Nov 2, 2019
Uncertainty and obscurity has been everywhere and is still happening in my daily life. In many countries, people often feel displaced or vulnerable because they don’t understand the status of their minds and how to express them clearly. The state of ambiguity intrigued me, leading to produce abstract imagery.
My painting process is a way to heighten the level of understanding my own experience. I focus on playful and childish characteristics, as humor does not need logical understanding or verbal explanation. It is generally free from cultural differences, and is natural to human sense. Laughter is universal and ties it all together.
Photo by Winnie Westergard
Neddy Artist Award Exhibition
Benhke Family Gallery, Cornish College of Arts, Seattle, WA, Sep 7 - Oct 16 2022