Ha Haengeun is a Seoul-based contemporary artist whose work explores the boundaries between the visible and the unseen. Through painting and ceramics, she investigates the essence of human existence, relationships, and the fundamental meaning of life. Her practice begins at the threshold where perception meets imagination—where emotion, memory, vitality, and the traces of time interlace to reveal the hidden rhythm of both the inner self and the cosmos.

For more than fifteen years, Ha has developed a body of work centered on the human face as a site of psychological reflection. Half-closed eyes, translucent layers of color, and subtly flattened surfaces evoke the tension between inner and outer worlds, memory and reality. Since 2019, her parallel engagement with ceramics has deepened her exploration of human fragility—embracing cracks, breaks, and material imperfections as metaphors for resilience and the quiet persistence of life.

In Ha‘s recent abstract paintings, her focus has shifted toward a more primordial realm—toward a “pre-form” state of perception. Imagining a fetal viewpoint, she visualizes sensations that precede shape or language, portraying the world as a vast, womb-like cosmos where everything is interconnected. This evolution is not a rupture but a continuous unfolding: a transition from the world that is seen to the world that is felt.

At the core of Ha’s artistic philosophy lies the idea of connection—between past and present, self and world, life and death. For her, art is not a finished product but an ongoing process of reweaving meaning within uncertainty—a way of understanding and loving the world through creation.

Ha has held more than twenty solo exhibitions and numerous group shows both in Korea and abroad. In her recent works, she continues to expand the language of painting, exploring new ways to embody time, memory, and the subtle sensibilities of human connection.

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?

I spent my early childhood on a small island called Jindo in the southern part of Korea, where I lived until the age of seven. At that time, I felt I existed within nature, not apart from it. Behind my house was a mountain; my days were filled with running through fields and forests. When my family moved to Seoul, I could no longer play freely outdoors. Instead, I began to make and draw the things I longed for—and that became another kind of nature within me.

A friend encouraged me to enter an art high school, and naturally I went on to art college. Yet even then, I never thought of becoming an “artist” in a professional sense. My real curiosity was about life itself—its beginnings and its ends, its suffering and beauty. I read Zhuangzi, Buddhist philosophy, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Indian mysticism, seeking answers to the question: How should one live?

Eventually, I realized there were no absolute answers—only personal stories told in different forms. I came to understand that art is one such form: a way of expressing one’s own questions through one’s chosen way of life.

For me, living itself is a creative act. Observing the world carefully, choosing the values that make me want to live, and shaping a life around them—this is both an act of responsibility and of self-creation. Among all human pursuits, I believe art is the most beautiful form of such creation. That was how my artistic journey began, and it continues today as a visual exploration of questions that rise from within me: existence, relationship, and the meaning of life itself.

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?
My work begins with questions that emerge from human life—loss, pain, death, love, hope, and freedom.
“Who am I?”
“What is the meaning of life, knowing it will end?”
“Why is the world so full of contradictions?”

Human beings live in a world of dualities: memory and reality, inner and outer, love and hate. I try to look at that world and find an artistic language from within my own inner landscape.

I love humanity deeply—and because of that, I often suffer. In one part of the world, people destroy each other, while elsewhere, others struggle to save a single life. My heart shifts between anger and compassion, hatred and forgiveness. How can such opposing feelings coexist within one human being?

In my early twenties, I lost my sense of meaning, yet even in despair, I felt a strong will to live. It was as if the traces of love, courage, and hope from previous generations were being reborn within me.

For me, art is an act of believing in connection and possibility.

Creating means enduring uncertainty and ambiguity, yet choosing to keep weaving meaning—to reconnect what has been broken and to discover new possibilities. Art is not my way of escaping the world, but of understanding and loving it.

Recently, I have returned to the origin of human existence through the series When I Was in My Mother’s Womb. It imagines a pre-linguistic space where emotions and memories begin—a primordial state where light and shadow first converse. I see this as a “cosmic womb,” a vast interconnected web in which all life continually emerges and disappears. Through painting, I explore that world— the origin of perception and the hidden truth beneath the visible

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

The question that has guided me for years is: How can painting expand the boundaries of perception and reveal new ways of seeing the world?

For more than fifteen years, I have focused primarily on figurative painting, using the human face as a symbolic surface to reflect universal emotions—identity, vulnerability, and the traces of relationships. During the years I spent mostly at home raising my children, I became deeply engaged with memory, reality, and the imagination, which naturally expanded my vision toward objects and landscapes.

More recently, my focus has shifted toward a more primal state—the realm of sensation before form. This shift arose from a desire to return to the beginning, to imagine the world from a fetal perspective. My exploration of ceramics over the past seven years has deepened this transformation. Through clay’s cracks, textures, and colors, I experienced a world of abstract expression where lines, points, and planes flow like breath. I discovered that what is invisible—emotion, memory, vitality, and connection—often becomes clearer through abstraction.

This change was not a rupture but a continuous evolution—a movement from the visible to the felt, from the surface of form to the depth of sensation.

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?

I often face the truth that I don’t fully know who I am—or what the world is. That also means I don’t always know what I want to paint. But I’ve come to accept that not knowing is an essential part of being human. We cannot escape uncertainty; we can only learn to live with it.

If we can love the world, we can begin to see it differently—to resist habitual ways of seeing. To love is to observe without judgment. And in doing so, we can reconnect things that seem separate, creating something that didn’t exist before.

During my process, there are moments of small revelation—when I glimpse and understand a piece of my own inner self. Those moments make me feel alive. Paradoxically, the very uncertainty that challenges me also sustains me. My greatest struggle has been not to lose meaning in the midst of that uncertainty. Yet even in those moments, I search for faint glimmers of possibility. I don’t avoid failure, chance, or imperfection—I accept them. Through them, I continue to paint and shape forms, connecting broken threads again and again.

In this process, I’ve come to realize that art is not a finished product, but a way of reweaving meaning—a way of being in the world.

How do you balance artistic integrity with commercial considerations, if applicable?

For me, artistic integrity means staying true to the questions that first led me to create—questions about life, death, and impermanence. Even when commercial factors enter the picture, I never allow them to dictate the direction of my work.

Art, for me, is an act of listening—listening to the quiet voices that connect time, material, and the world around me. If my work reaches others and finds a place in the world, I see that as a form of dialogue. What matters most is to remain honest to that inner voice, even when faced with external expectations.

Can you describe a recent project or artwork that you are particularly proud of?

In my recent paintings, I explore art as a possibility for life itself. My desire to reach the unseen led me to imagine “the world before birth,” which evolved into the series When I Was in My Mother’s Womb.

In my earlier figurative works, newborns often appeared as beings still connected to that unknown realm before birth. But as I began to embrace abstraction, I felt as if I had crossed into another dimension—a landscape of first perception, where all existence is connected.

From that realization came the series Inner Cosmos. In When I Was in My Mother’s Womb, I imagined the light felt within the darkness of the womb. In Inner Cosmos, I layered the memory of light filtering through a door crack in a dark room—an image that mirrors the sense of safety and mystery I associate with the womb’s inner light.

Through these abstract expressions, I feel I have come closer to articulating the “sensation of the unseen.” These series represent a continuous expansion of my inner world—a journey to understand how existence and the cosmos are intimately connected.

Text & photo courtesy of Ha Haengeun

Website: http://hahaengeun.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hahaengeun/