Hyunsun Jeon

Hyunsun Jeon’s paintings evoke a world of fairy tales, where nature takes on disturbing twists and turns. Forests and green hills are synonymous with peace, tranquility and contemplation, but are also charged with dramatic intensity. Her compositions are dominated by green, blue and black hues. Executed in watercolor, small brushstrokes juxtapose to form pixelated images; they often feature geometric shapes with well-defined contours, which appear to inhabit these imaginary landscapes. Jeon plays with different perceptions of reality: shifts in perspective, mirrors or windows creating points of view that blur the lines and give free rein to daydreaming. Her taste for the quirky and the unconventional is reflected in the way her paintings are presented: hung, at times, non-linearly on the wall, they are often assembled in self-supporting structures, in the form of folding screens or polygons. Following her studies at Ewha Womans University, Hyunsun Jeon participated in exhibitions at the SongEun Foundation (Seoul); at the 12th Mediacity Biennale at SeMA (Seoul); Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (Seoul); Suwon Ipark Museum of Art (Suwon); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Cheongju); Busan Museum of Art (Busan); Korean Cultural Centre (Hong Kong). In 2024, she was a finalist for the Jean-François Prat contemporary painting prize. In 2025, her large installation, Into the Woods to Lose Our Way, was jointly presented by Galerie Lelong and Esther Schipper at Art Basel Unlimited. She is one of the four finalists of the Korea Artist Prize 2026 awarded by the MMCA – National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in Seoul.