At Frieze Seoul 2026, drawingRoom presents artistic visions that puts forward a process-centered understanding of Korean contemporary art, where the material intelligence and crafted rigor are emphasized as essential tools for revisiting the presence of the lived experience today. Eight Korean artists (Donghoon Rhee, Jinsik Yoo, Leebinsoyeon, Miyeon Yi, Sanoh Lee, Sooji Lee, Sungoo Im, Yoo Jung Ellie Choi) explore personal themes of identity, place, memory, and everyday realities through labor-intensive and craft-driven performative processes involving precise material decisions.
Twelve to fifteen artworks will be primarily hung or placed along the walls of the booth. The works are composed of two-dimensional media as well as sculptural figures that transcend beyond technique, engaging materials (wood, paper, graphite, threads, ceramic) and crafted rigor (sewing, wood carving, papier-mâché) as frames of thoughts from which the artists explore how personal narratives are formed, how memory is re-constructed, and how ordinary actions disclose hidden cultural frameworks.
© Courtesy of the artist
Donghoon Rhee (b.1991, based in Seoul, Korea) explores the relationship between sculpture and painting through wood-based sculptural practice. Accumulating the gestures of making and the material qualities of wood throughout his process, he creates works that move between sculpture and image, surface and volume, inviting renewed ways of perceiving the relationship between objects and perception.
He received his BFA in Painting from Kyung Hee University and MFA in Fine Arts from Seoul National University of Science and Technology. His recent solo exhibitions include Light Choreography (Gallery SP, Seoul, 2023), Woman (VSF & Milk, Los Angeles, 2022), The statue knows how to dance (Gallery SP, Seoul, 2021), and Room with Flowers (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2019). Selected group exhibitions include Symbiotic Planet (Geumcheon Art Factory, Seoul, 2025), Breathe in, Breathe out (Wooran Foundation, Seoul, 2024), 7th Changwon Sculpture Biennale Prologue Exhibition – Speaking about the future : Shape, Map, Tree (Seongsan Art Hall, Changwon, 2023), and Sculptural Impulse (Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2022), among others. He was an artist-in-residence at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon in 2025, and his works are held in the collections of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Art Bank, Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art, and Ulsan Art Museum.
© Courtesy of the artist
Jinsik Yoo (b.1985, based in US and Korea) explores the transformation of clay from a flat surface into self-supporting sculpture. The material qualities of clay and the traces of the artist’s hand accumulated throughout the making process shape abstract figures that evoke both human and animal forms, fluidly traversing social categories such as nationality, gender, and status. By suspending fixed systems of classification, his sculptures suggest the possibility of multiple modes of existence coexisting.
He received his BFA in Communication and Graphic Design from Konkuk University before completing graduate studies in Ceramics at the same institution. He later earned an MFA in Ceramic Art from Alfred University, New York. Alongside his independent practice in New York, he worked as a fabrication team member in Simone Leigh’s studio. His recent solo exhibitions include A Certain Garden (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2025), Palimpsest (The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, 2025) and Procession (Jane Hartsook Gallery, New York, 2024). He was selected for the NCECA Emerging Artists Fellowship (2021) and 57 Korean Sculptors in 30s and 40s (Art In Culture, September 2021). His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art of Medellin, Colombia, and the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, USA. His installation project at the Banana Republic SoHo Flagship Store in New York was acquired in its entirety.
Backlit film printing (digital painting), light panel, 84 × 48 cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Leebinsoyeon (b.1988, based in Seoul, Korea) develops an artistic practice that examines the politics of the outsider through exaggerated and deliberately improbable narratives. Within her works, sincerity and humor, reality and fiction intersect to form distinctive narrative structures. Rather than occupying the position of an exemplary subject within a community or accepting fixed identities imposed by social labels, Lee deliberately resists categorization. This position gives rise to subtle moments of estrangement that shape the unique atmosphere and sensibility of her work. She studied Visual Communication Design at Kyung Hee University. Her solo exhibitions include Nothing(0) Department (sangheeut, Seoul, 2024), Love on the Air (YPC Space, Seoul, 2022), and Final Touch (3standardstoppage, Beijing, 2021; Jeonsigonggan, Seoul, 2020). Recent group exhibitions include 12th Amado Art Annuale: In Progress (Amado Art Space, Seoul, 2025), Floating Worlds: Bed, Bath, Bus (Sehwa Museum of Art, Seoul, 2025), Mysterious Solidarity of Messengers (Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, 2024), and How Does Performance Art Work? (Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, Seoul, 2023).
© Courtesy of the artist
Miyeon Yi (b.1995, based in London, UK) works primarily with tempera to explore the shifting boundaries between the visible and the invisible, presence and absence. Drawing upon childhood memories, she reconstructs fragmented spaces within the picture plane, where scenes and emotions from different times and places coexist. Her paintings expand into layered narrative environments that connect multiple temporalities and dimensions, extending beyond the canvas into antique objects with opening doors that invite encounters between parallel possibilities.
She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MA from the Royal College of Art, London. Recent exhibitions include Holding on to Gravity (Long Story Short, New York, 2025), Domestic Flights (Frestonian Gallery, London, 2025), Buzz~ Buzz~ Buzz~ (Linseed Projects, Shanghai, 2024), and Asia Now (MOU PROJECTS, Paris, 2024).
© Courtesy of the artist
Sanoh Lee (b.1996, based in Seoul, Korea) creates poetic reflections on life and death through clay, paper, and graphite. Drawing connections between the structures through which text and image are generated, she explores the relationships among different creative languages. Borrowing motifs from literature, she constructs associations between text and image, unfolding surreal compositions that resemble the process of writing. Recurring bird imagery—referencing the bird-and-flower tradition of Korean painting as a messenger between life and death—serves as a poetic motif through which intuition, premonition, and unseen presences become perceptible.
She received her BFA in Korean Painting from Sejong University and MFA in Ceramic Craft from Seoul National University of Science and Technology. Her solo exhibitions include Eclipse Plumage (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2025), Island of Pale Languages (Project Space mu.mokjeok, Seoul, 2023), and Things that can’t be explained like praying (What Artist Do, Seoul, 2022). Recent group exhibitions include Till 7, From 7 (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2026), Golden Arrow (TINC, Seoul, 2024), Mysterious Solidarity of Messengers (Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, 2024), and Vitarium (Shinhan Gallery, Seoul, 2023).
© Courtesy of the artist
Sooji Lee (b.1986, based in Seoul, Korea) is deeply interested in how things are made. Her practice develops through the creation of processes, systems, and tools that generate subsequent works, rather than following a linear sequence from beginning to end. Methodologies initiated in one project are continuously expanded, transformed, and carried into the next. Working through accumulations of minute material units that form clusters and densities, Lee embraces what she calls a “Slow Process,” foregrounding manual labor and intuitive making as fundamental components of her practice.
She received her BA in Industrial Design from Hongik University and MA in Information Design from Design Academy Eindhoven. Her solo exhibitions include No Content Available (WWNN, Seoul, 2025), Glitch-philic (Soorim Cube, Seoul, 2024), 4 Tools (Soorim Art Center, Seoul, 2023), Form forming, Formation (Inchon Art Platform, Seoul, 2023), Liminal Phase (OCI Museum, Seoul, 2022), and When Attitudes Become Typeface (4bid Gallery, Amsterdam, 2017). Recent group exhibitions include Generative Forms (Songeun Art Space, Seoul, 2026), Symbiotic Planet (Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul, 2025), Cheongju Craft Biennale (Cheongju Craft Biennale Exhibition Hall, Cheongju, 2021), and Open Studio (Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, 2019). Since 2025, She has been an artist-in-residence at Art Space Geumcheon. She has also participated in residency programs at MMCA(National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) Goyang Residency (2024), SeMA(Seoul Museum of Art) Nanji Residency (2023), Incheon Art Platform (2022), and Jan van Eyck, Maastricht (2019).
© Courtesy of the artist
Sungoo Im (b.1990, based in Seoul, Korea) works primarily with paper and graphite, she creates drawings that trace fragments of life discovered within personal narratives. Weaving together subtle connections between private experiences and public events, Im constructs pictorial spaces that unfold like intricately woven narratives. Balancing melancholy with quiet humor, her works weave together overlapping memories of individuals, families, homes, and cities into layered landscapes of shared experience. Through these intimate narratives, she preserves the traces of a rapidly changing society and the collective memories that might otherwise fade away.
She received both her BFA and MFA in the Department of Fine Arts from Seoul National University of Science and Technology. Her recent solo exhibitions include A Castle Built of Dust (Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2024), Wall · Rock · Flood · Oneself (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2022), A Flower Which Can’t Even Be Seen: Excavating Footprints (SeMA Storage, Seoul, 2022), The Days Were Strange and Peaceful (Hakgojae Design Project Space, Seoul, 2020), and Black Sand on Paper (Gallery Chosun, Seoul, 2019). She has participated in major group exhibitions such as Dreaming by Day (Wooran Foundation, Seoul, 2026), Folding Acts (Coreana Museum, Seoul, 2026), Dear My Forest (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, 2024), Doosan Artlab 2022 (Doosan Gallery, Seoul, 2022), and Unfamiliar Expedition (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2021). She is currently an artist-in-residence at MMCA Goyang Residency and has previously participated in residency programs at Suwon Art Studio (Korea, 2025), Incheon Art Platform (Korea, 2023), and Yangju Art Studio (Korea, 2022).
© Courtesy of the artist
Yoo Jung Ellie Choi (b.1994, based in Seoul and New York) explores the relationship between contemporary domestic space and the psychological landscapes of its inhabitants. Through modern interiors occupied by solitary figures, she constructs scenes where emotional states are projected onto architectural space. Doors, windows, and staircases recur as liminal structures, allowing subtle surreal elements to permeate otherwise familiar environments.
She received her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA in Fine Arts from Korea National University of Arts. Recent exhibitions include Velvet Hammers (FIM, Seoul, 2025), Behind You, I Exist (Peres Projects, Berlin, 2025), and Beyond Window (drawingRoom, Seoul, 2024).
All images must be credited as provided.
Images are for promotional use only and may not be edited.
Venue
Booth C16, COEX, Seoul
Artists
Donghoon Rhee, Jinsik Yoo, Leebinsoyeon, Miyeon Yi, Sanoh Lee, Sooji Lee, Sungoo Im, Yoo Jung Ellie Choi
Exhibition Dates
September 2 – 5, 2026
Website
https://www.drawingroom.kr/
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/drawingroomseoul/
Contact
drawingroomseoul@gmail.com
(Text and images courtesy of drawingRoom)
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