Junmin Shin

Through his contemporary paintings, Shin explores the landscapes we see, hear, feel, and experience in our daily lives. Drawing from imaginary scenes composed of fragments of his own memories, unfamiliar moments encountered along familiar paths, and curated nature such as zoos, his works blur the line between figuration and abstraction. For the artist, light serves as a new sensory memory, perceived through various forms depending on the interplay of light and landscape, influenced by factors, including temperature, wind, sound, and color. The ‘something’ that emerges from the fleeting afterimages of light is captured on canvas through his painting technique. As shapes of light disappear and transform, they are overlaid and dripped with countless brushstrokes. By layering the materiality of paint, Shin delicately conveys both the hot, heavy light of a flame and the cool light achieved by wiping away the paint. His work captures the ever-changing forms of light, reflecting the interplay of space and conditions at the intersection of materiality and immateriality, figuration and abstraction, visibility and invisibility. Shin graduated from Yeungnam University’s Department of Painting and received his MFA from Dongguk University’s Department of Painting. Starting with his first solo exhibition at Bongsan Cultural Center in 2014, he has held 10 solo exhibitions, including NEW LIGHT (2022) at Boan Stay Seoul and Stroll (2022) at Art Space Pearl, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions.