Seung Yul Oh has created an instantly recognisable and idiosyncratic practice combining elements of East Asian popular culture with ironic references to high Western art history. Incorporating painting, installation, sculpture, video, performance, and public art, Oh works seamlessly across media. He is well known for whimsical art works that toy with scale and exist somewhere between spectacle and participation. Long resisting a conventional approach to form and material, he redefines and challenges ordinary objects and spaces in ways that are both light hearted and serious.
Previous installations have used air to manipulate and redefine space, including enormous bubbles that jostled for position on Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s outdoor terrace, and exaggerated and hyperreal sculptures of Korean noodle dishes and cute animal forms rendered in gleamingly reflective fibreglass. In 2013, Periphery, a forest of towering yellow and white pellet-shaped inflatables that audiences pushed their way through was selected by influential Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa for the prestigious Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong. This showing led to Oh being named as one of the rising stars of the Asian art market by the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Running parallel to these playful art works is Oh’s painting, a formal and sometimes minimalist practice, which the artist has described as ‘musical’ and offering moments of balance and counterpoint. Like much of his vastly diverse practice, an element of autobiography runs through Seung Yul Oh’s practice. Although reminiscent of Western minimalism and abstraction, his non-figurative work with its emphasis on process and materials owes something to the post-war Korean tradition of Tansaekhwa (Dansaekhwa). The term, meaning literally ‘monochrome painting’, appeared in the 1970s to describe work that shared a sparse palette and an innovative approach to process. This was a new movement, playing with and disrupting Western traditions as it filtered through a Korean cultural lens. A vital distinction from the logic and mathematically aligned Western movements was that Tansaekhwa focused on the meditative aspect of creating art, an approach of growth and layering rather than ‘emptiness’.
Oh has made significant contributions to the public realm with sculptures such as Orbit (2024), a striking pair of 6.5m mirror-polished bronze infinity symbols that elegantly cantilever over the entryway of 101 Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia. Orbit was awarded the Rider Levett Bucknall RLB Award for Best Public Art Project 2024. Oh’s iconic OnDo (2015 – 2021) was a larger-than-life sculpture of noodles held up by chopsticks in the Asian foodie mecca of Auckland’s Dominion Road. Other notable public artworks include Moment of Movement (2022), Ōtākaro, Christchurch Convention & Exhibition Centre (CCEC); Form in Formation (2018), commissioned by the Nelson Sculpture Trust; Conduct Cumulus (2017) commissioned by SCAPE Public Art; Upon a Pond and Drop a Loop (2017) commissioned by Auckland Council; Beat Connection (2012) commissioned by MESH Sculpture Hamilton, and Globgob (2010) commissioned by Newmarket Arts Trust and Auckland Council.
Seung Yul Oh was the second recipient of the Harriet Friedlander Residency which, with support from the Arts Foundation, allowed him to undertake an artist residency in New York in 2011. Born in Korea, Seung Yul moved to New Zealand to study at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts, where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts. He is now permanently based in New Zealand and continues to show internationally.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Atonal Sonority, Northart, Auckland, NZ
Guttation, One and J. Gallery, Seoul, SK
2022
Huggong-Monologue, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
2020
Touch, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul, KR
2018
Vary very, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul, KR
Horizontal Loop, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
Soom: variation II, Xinchang Culture Centre, Shanghai, CN
2016
Slit Scan, Tauranga Art Gallery, Tauranga, NZ
2015
HaaPoom, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland, NZ
Left, Right, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul, KR
2014
SOOM, Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ
memmem, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
MOAMOA, a Decade, City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, NZ
2013
MOAMOA, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, NZ
Huggong, Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, NZ
SEESAW, ONE AND J. GALLERY, Seoul, KR
2012
Huggong, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
2011
Bok, The Physics Room, Christchurch, NZ
Solo Group Show, ggooll, Seoul, KR
2010
Bogle Bogle, The New Dowse Museum, Wellington, NZ
2009
Pokpo, Artspace, Auckland, NZ
2008
Oddooki, Sculpture Court, Te Papa the Museum of Wellington, NZ
Daradaradarada, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
2007
Ssendong, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
2006
Chew Chew Tongue, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
All the Way Down Back Inside the Bones of Your Spine, Peter’s Garage, Auckland, NZ
2004
Sniffing Onioned Armpit, Special Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2003
Seung, Deepfried at Peter’s Garage, Peter’s Garage, Auckland, NZ
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Perpetual Guardian Sculpture on the Gulf 2024, Waiheke, NZ
2023
Surface Tension, Starkwhite, Queenstown, NZ
First Light, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, AU
2020
Season’s Greetings: Peace, joy and love to 2020, ONE AND J. GALLERY, Seoul, KR
First Light, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, AU
2019
Group Show, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
We Don’t Really Die, One and J. Gallery, Seoul, KR
Condo Shanghai 2019, ONE AND J. GALLERY, Seoul, KR
2018
Sampler, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
The Well, Whistle, Seoul, KR
2016
TWELVE DAYS, The Cat Street Gallery, ONE AND J. GALLERY, Seoul, KR
2014
Signals, Starkwhite, Auckland, NZ
2010
Liz Maw & Seung Yul Oh, Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland, NZ
PUBLIC COMMISSIONS
2024
Orbit, Commissioned by curator Emily Cormack, 101 Collins Street, Melbourne, AU
2022
Moment of Movement, Ōtākaro, Christchurch Convention & Exhibition Centre (CCEC), Christchurch, NZ
Anechoic Assemble, Coupland Cormack, Cordis Hotel Lobby, Auckland, NZ
2018
Form in Formation, Nelson Sculpture Trust, Richimond Library, Nelson, NZ
2017
Conduct Cumulus, SCAPE Public Art, Arts Centre, Christchurch, NZ
2015
Ondo, Albert-Eden Local Board, Dominion Road, Auckland, NZ
2014
Soom, Sculpture Court, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ
GoGammSannHammSabb, Amore Pacific Korea, Jeju Island, KR
2012
Beat connection / Pumanawa O Te Whenua, Commissioned by Mesh sculpture Trust, Hamilton, NZ
AWARDS AND GRANTS
2005
The Waikato National Art Award, Hamilton, NZ
2003
Goldwater Art Award, Waiheke Island, NZ
COLLECTIONS
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, NZ
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ
James Wallace Art Trust, Auckland, NZ
Te papa, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, NZ
The New Dowse Museum, Wellington, NZ National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, AU
Amorepacific Museum of Art Project, Jeju, KR