Visual Artist based in Seoul, South Korea
**Pilgrim • Baekja—**Signature Series **(Baekja is Korean White Porcelain)
Hyesook Oh is a visual artist based in South Korea. Amid expanding indeterminacy, she has developed Gyeol, a Korean concept, as her visual language and a medium through which Becoming unfolds. Through her artistic practice Pilgrim • Baekja, she reinterprets the Korean moon jar from a contemporary ontological perspective, exploring the reconfiguration of existence and the possibility of coexistence. She regards the formal characteristics embodied in the moon jar as a model for contemplating the structure of existence.
After studying Textile Design, she earned an M.A. in Art of Communication from Regent University (USA). Upon returning to Korea, she worked as an animation producer and taught at Hansung University. She subsequently completed doctoral coursework in Visual and Media Arts at Sogang University, where she was inspired by Teilhard de Chardin. Her research focused particularly on the art of Nam June Paik, further deepening her interdisciplinary approach to art and media. Her earlier doctoral research on Nam June Paik and Marshall McLuhan continues to inform her exploration of painting, perception, and the contemporary environment.
Her multicultural experiences of living in the United States and Dubai, together with her interdisciplinary background spanning textile design, producing, and Visual & Media Arts, have become a significant foundation for her current artistic practice.
Most recently, her Pilgrim • Baekja series was selected for the Established Voices section of IDENTITY, an international exhibition scheduled to take place in Seoul during Frieze & Kiaf Seoul Art Week. Through exhibitions in Seoul, New York, Greece, and Monaco, she continues to expand painting and installation into public, architectural, and exhibition spaces while exploring new ways in which contemporary painting can be experienced.
She is also developing Lab, an evolving platform for experimenting with painting in response to the contemporary environment, extending the practice into exhibition, research, critical discourse, and curatorial exploration.
****Amid an environment of expanding indeterminacy, all beings already exist within relationships and reveal themselves through relationships of becoming. Existence is not a fixed or separate entity, but is in a process of becoming and reconfiguration. Based on this contemporary ontological perspective, Hyesook Oh reinterprets the tradition of Korean white porcelain as a contemporary painterly practice through her series Pilgrim • Baekja, centered on the moon jar. The formal structure of the moon jar embodies this structure of existence.
This formal structure holds the possibility of different relationships meeting and transforming within uncertainty. Paradoxically, the traces and transformations that emerge through this process open new possibilities for existence.
Pilgrim • Baekja 50F. 001, 2026 Oil on canvas, 91.0 × 116.8 cm