Johyun Gallery will make its debut at Frieze New York, held at The Shed from May 13 to 17, 2026. In this first participation, the gallery will present works by Kishio Suga, Lee Bae, Kim Taek Sang, and Hwang Jihae, offering a diverse range of painterly approaches and expanded perspectives on materiality.

Leading the presentation, Kishio Suga, a key figure of the Japanese Mono-ha movement who held a solo exhibition at Dia Beacon, New York last year, will present Edges of Internal Void (2023) from his representative assemblage series. Through the tense arrangement of heterogeneous materials such as wood, metal, and acrylic, the work evokes the most fundamental elements of painting—black and white, line and plane—while revealing the relationships between objects and between objects and space. Rather than transforming materials, Suga presents them as found, allowing viewers to encounter the invisible structures and conditions that emerge between objects.

Lee Bae, who is currently holding a major solo exhibition at Museum SAN in Wonju, Korea, will present Brushstroke–Staples 1 (2026), a new development within his renowned “Brushstroke” series. Created using staples on canvas, this unconventional form of “brushstroke” extends the materiality and gestural quality of his charcoal works in a new direction. The accumulated, repetitive yet forceful actions generate a dense surface that reveals flows of energy, embodying an abstract painting where material and gesture are inseparably intertwined.

Kim Taek Sang will present a new work, Breathing Light–Purple 26-1 (2026), which unfolds a world of Dam-hwa (淡畵)formed through the interaction of water, pigment, and gravity. By repeatedly pouring and drying water on a canvas laid on the floor, he builds subtle layers of color that seem to hold and emit light. The resulting surface appears as though shaped by nature itself, delicately capturing the tension between control and chance, as well as between human action and natural forces.

Meanwhile, Hwang Jihae, whose practice translates entire ecological systems into art, will present Face of God Series – “Artemisia princeps” (2025), using mugwort (Artemisia). Through living plant materials, she expresses the healing energy of nature in the language of painting. Her works evolve over time, sensorially evoking the relationships between nature and humanity, life and matter.

Through the works of these four artists, engaging with wood, metal, charcoal, water, and plants, Johyun Gallery’s presentation explores how painting can expand within the realms of material, nature, and temporality. Each artist approaches this expansion differently, presenting painting not as a fixed image but as an ever-changing and generative process, thereby opening new possibilities for its interpretation.

Frieze New York 2026

Kishio Suga https://www.johyungallery.com/artists/71-kishio-suga/overview/

Kishio Suga is a Japanese artist known for pioneering site-specific installation art. He created ephemeral arrangements of natural and man-made materials in outdoor and indoor settings, gaining recognition for groundbreaking installations like “Parallel Strata” (1969) and “Soft Concrete” (1970). As part of the Mono-ha movement, he used unaltered natural and industrial materials to explore the interplay between elements, space, and materials. Since the mid-1980s, Suga has adapted his installations to new sites while maintaining their core concepts. His diverse practice includes assemblages, works on paper, and performances called “Activations.” He is also a prolific writer, with novels, essays, and a screenplay to his name. Suga has had numerous solo exhibitions at international museums, most recently at Dia: Chelsea, New York, United States (2016–17), Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy (2016), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2015). A re-creation of his iconic installation Law of Situation (1971) was presented at the 57th Venice Biennale, Italy (2017). Over the past four decades he has been featured in landmark exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the Guggenheim Museum, New York, United States; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, United States; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States; the Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy; and his work is included in many public and private collections. Kishio Suga held a solo exhibition at Dia Beacon in New York in July 2025.

Lee Bae https://www.johyungallery.com/artists/50-lee-bae/overview/

Lee Bae focuses on the expressive potential of charcoal as a medium. Over the course of three decades, Lee has dedicated himself to creating a diverse range of iterations of Korean painting through his use of charcoal and abstract forms that are self-sufficient and rich in spiritual and energetic qualities. By exploring immanent notions such as yielding, respiring, and circulation, which are embodied by charcoal as a material, Lee’s work resonates with themes of life and death, absence and presence, light and shadow, form, and emptiness. Lee’s oeuvre spans a wide range of mediums and forms, from drawings to canvas-based works, as well as installations, with each new work serving to expand upon his unique vision and approach. Lee’s works have been featured at museums and institutions worldwide including: Venice Biennale, Rockefeller Center, New York, Phi Foundation, Montreal, Canada; Indang Museum, Daegu, South Korea; Wilmotte Foundation, Venice, Italy; Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Vannes, France; and Musée Guimet, Paris, France. Among many others, Lee’s work is in the permanent collections of museums including the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Leeum-Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France; Musée Guimet, Paris, France; Baruj Foundation, Barcelona, Spain, and Privada Allegro Foundation, Madrid, Spain.

Kim Taek Sang https://www.johyungallery.com/artists/76-kim-taek-sang/overview/

Kim Taek Sang has been experimenting with the diffusion, sedimentation, and layering of color for over three decades through the medium of water. His process is iterative—mixing trace amounts of pigment into water, pouring the solution onto a canvas laid flat, then allowing it to dry. Repeated dozens of times, this practice is both ascetic and curative; he has come to describe it as the aesthetics of care. This delicate layering of sediment on canvas creates subtle interstices that scatter light and permeate the surface with depth and density, evoking nature’s own palette of serene and understated hues. Kim describes his creations as dàamhwa (淡畵 – dàam painting), where dàam carries meanings of clear, delicate, faint, or thin in tint. Kim’s earliest works in the early 1990s contained commentaries on socio-political issues, but he experienced an artistic turning point when he was captivated by the prismatic waters of the Yellowstone Caldera. Through this encounter, he began incorporating natural elements—water, air, light, and gravity—into his studio practice, developing a distinctive visual language that bridges materiality and the senses, concept and nature. Kim’s works avoid overt contrasts, favoring elusive similarities, subtle oscillations, and minute pulses of light. While his work is discussed within the lineage of Dansaekhwa, his practice stands apart, reflecting a deeply personal exploration of the relationships between nature, humanity, medium, and perception. Kim holds a B.F.A. in Painting from Chungang University and an M.F.A. in Western Painting from Hongik University. His works are included in the collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Kumho Museum of Art; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea and Suwon I’Park Museum of Art, Suwon, South Korea.

Hwang Jihae https://www.johyungallery.com/artists/74-hwang-ji-hae/overview/

Hwang Jihae creates conceptually rich gardens that merge Korean traditional aesthetics with contemporary design elements. To her, the very essence of life is in the symbiosis of nature and humanity. Seeking and focusing on stories coming forth from the soil, her works recreate her encounters with nature. The simple and unadorned ways of Korean gardens embrace nature without ostentation or exaggeration, and with that very plainness, she calls to bring nature into artificial spaces.Hwang has faith in planting flowers and trees in the garden as the most intellectual and truthful way of life, and in the sweat and dust of labor to make humble us and guide us to true virtue. She weaves together encounters with the self, temporal art, and ancestral wisdoms that enrich soil to tell stories of nature, humanity, and life.Her entry at the 2011 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, “Hae Woo So: Emptying Your Mind: Traditional Korean Toilet,” was awarded Best Artisan Garden and the Gold Medal. Her 2012 entry, “Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden” was awarded the RHS President’s Award, and again, the Gold Medal. She returned to the show in 2023 with a show garden titled “Jirisan: Letters from a Million Years Past” and received her third Gold Medal. In 2012, she also entered the Floriade Exhibition in the Netherlands with “Mudflat: Sewn by Mother’s Hand – Suncheon Bay” and represented Korea at the 2013 Japan Gardening World Cup with “Poverty…Its Tranquility,” through which she spoke to the essence of peace. Hwang Jihae continues to expand the boundaries of garden design through various works, including “The Sun Shining on the Corner”—a memorial garden for women forced into sexual slavery during Japanese occupation—at the Seoul Garden Festival, as well as the “Bambalina sp.” installation and “Circular Garden Project: Leisurely and Lively Conversation” at the MMCA.

Venue
Frieze New York – The Shed

Artists
Kishio Suga, Lee Bae, Kim Taek Sang, and Hwang Jihae

Exhibition Dates
May 13, 11:00–19:00 (VIP Preview)

May 14, 11:00–19:00 (VIP Preview & Public Access)

May 15–16, 11:00–19:00 (Public Access)

May 17, 11:00–18:00 (Public Access)

Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Sunday | 10:30 AM – 6:30 PM

Website
https://www.johyungallery.com

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/johyungallery/

Contact
press@johyungallery.com

(Text and images courtesy of Johyun Gallery)