Dreamy, psychadelic art from an Emmy Award winning artist
Californian Seonna Hong is colourful to say the least! Her bizarre, marbled, dreamy landscapes are very emotive and expressive and are built on her wonderful imagination. There is also a deep consideration of the minimal and naturalistic landscapes she creates, that are not only filled with drama, and follow a kind of artistic narrative but illustrate a balance between human and nature.
Hong is a multi-disciplinary talent with international recognition as a painter, illustrator and animation production artist. Notable accolades include an Emmy Award, a critically acclaimed picture book and in 2008 she was chosen by Takashi Murakami as the first American to have a solo exhibition at the world renowned KaiKai Kiki gallery in Japan.
Where Hong’s previous works focused on reckoning, forgiveness and ‘wishing I said all the things I didn’t say,’ If You Lived Here I’d Be Home by Now explores the possibilities of what’s to come. In the artist’s words, “My once melancholic and somber pieces have given way to a new kind of hopefulness.”
Continuing to move away from compositions of fully formed ideas, Hong’s process is spontaneous yet deliberate. Using paint swirls and scrapes to define space and texture her signature characterization of girls and animals remains, but they exist less as protagonists and more as a lens to view the expressionistic landscapes they occupy. In If You Lived Here I’d Be Home by Now the artist works with a visual and literal vocabulary that takes cues from her personal life. By incorporating text and using books as her canvas for a selection of works, Hong examines the universal themes of exploration and reconnecting with our sense of childlike wonder.
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