Gallery Hyundai presents two interconnected exhibitions tracing Korean painting from historical folk and court images to contemporary practice, spread across the main building, new building, and Dugahyeon gallery. “Solemnity and Creativity: Variations of Korean Minhwa” brings together about 27 museum-quality works of minhwa and court painting, revealing how images once divided by class and function have long circulated, influenced one another, and shaped what we recognize as a distinctly Korean visual language. “Hwa-Ui-Do (The Way of Painting)” 화이도 extends this lineage into the present with six artists whose works reactivate traditional pictorial archetypes through today’s materials, technologies, and sensibilities, showing tradition as a living structure rather than a fixed style. Moving at a comfortable pace, it takes about 60–90 minutes to see all three floors, from the basement level to the upper galleries, with enough time to sit with a few key works. The Musee’s selection from the show is New York–based artist Seong Min Ahn, whose work stands out for its poised balance between craft and experiment: she maintains a rigorously traditional approach to drawing and surface while opening those techniques up through unconventional structures and mixed media, so that the paintings feel at once deeply rooted and quietly forward-looking.
