Hwang Wonhae (b. 1989) begins her work with observations of urban architecture and the experiences within those spaces. She reinterprets the surface elements of buildings that shape the city's landscape, expressing the inherent sense of place on the canvas. 
 
To achieve this, the artist experiments with various materials and techniques, constructing multilayered compositions that visually embody the characteristics of both the interior and exterior of the urban environment that she has internalized.

Hwang Wonhae’s early works, developed after 2010, focus on various architectural structures in Korea where tradition and modernity coexist. Her paintings blend traditional Korean architectural elements—such as palaces, temples, and hanok—with modern skyscraper features. 
 
By layering, distorting, dissolving, and fragmenting disparate elements found on architectural surfaces, Hwang constructs unfamiliar and surreal urban landscapes.

Before turning twenty, Hwang Wonhae moved nearly ten times, living in various spaces such as semi-basement villas, apartments, and detached houses. These personal experiences led her to focus on the power of space in shaping an individual’s memories and experiences. 
 
Her 2018 solo exhibition 《Phantasmagoria》 at Art Space Boan 1 explored the memories of individuals and communities, as well as historical contexts, hidden behind urban redevelopment and reconstruction driven by collective desires.

Moving beyond the binary distinctions of tradition and modernity, past and present, Hwang Wonhae explored the multilayered nature of time by utilizing the entire exhibition space, which itself held a long history. 
 
Unlike her previous works, which were primarily two-dimensional, this exhibition treated the space itself as a canvas. She transformed architectural grids and dancheong patterns into three-dimensional forms and used PET film to create distinct yet interconnected layers. These layers functioned both individually and collectively, offering multiple perspectives. Additionally, her shaped canvas works blended with the walls of the space, directly overlapping the meanings of the artwork and its surrounding environment.

In this way, Hwang Wonhae experimented with overlapping disparate times and spaces by physically intersecting structural elements extracted from three-dimensional urban environments with the three-dimensional realm of the exhibition space. 
 
Two years later, in her 2020 solo exhibition 《The Fourth Wall》 at Artspace HYEONG, architectural forms such as dancheong patterns and glass facades no longer appeared as structures but as patterns on the surface of the canvas.
 
While her works at Art Space Boan 1 responded to the structural conditions of the exhibition space, at Artspace HYEONG, she moved away from three-dimensional structures, instead occupying space through flat, patterned forms to create new visual imagery.

Hwang covered the entire exhibition space’s walls with a U-shaped patterned vinyl sheet and placed paintings reflecting parts of the pattern on top of it. In the narrow, elongated corridor-like exhibition space, viewers were positioned in a way that forced them to follow fragments rather than the whole composition. 
 
This fragmented perception mirrors the visual experience of continuously unfolding urban architectural surfaces in reality. Curator Hyun Chung noted that “the gradual dissolution of structural representations reminiscent of deconstruction or fragmentation, and the increasing emphasis on the repetition and continuity of patterns, stem from this very idea.”

Hwang Wonhae’s patterns traverse the boundary between surface and space while also blurring the line between material and immaterial. Her process involves transferring digital sketches created with computer programs onto canvas, photographing the results, and then reintroducing them into digital space before once again incorporating them into the final composition. Through this iterative process, the screen-based images and painterly representations overlap in a discontinuous collage-like manner. 
 
Furthermore, as suggested by the title of her ‘Moire’ series—named after the interference patterns created by overlapping grids—these patterns shift and misalign depending on the viewer’s movement and perspective, generating an unexpected sense of motion.

While Hwang Wonhae’s early works highlighted the historical characteristics and unique visual elements of architecture, her practice since 2020 has shifted toward a deeper focus on the physical dynamics of architectural surfaces themselves.
 
In her 2021 solo exhibition 《Facade in Facade》 at OCI Museum of Art, she explored the two-dimensional interplay between three-dimensional architectural structures and the virtual shading effects of screentone, presenting a new landscape that oscillates between the real and the digital.

Hwang Wonhae deconstructs and reconfigures smooth glass facades and fragmented architectural structures on canvas, layering screentone fragments onto these surfaces. This collage-like process oscillates between material and immaterial realms, continuously discovering new combinations of materials within the image while simultaneously dismantling their symbolic and physical connections. 
 
She likens this approach to “cross-processing”—a photographic technique where users intentionally manipulate standard development settings to alter the final image. By merging patterns extracted from real building surfaces with screentone effects, her works transcend their original architectural functions, constructing entirely new material landscapes.

In addition to using the superficial images of the city and overlaying them with patterns, Hwang Wonhae also created works that explore the emotional and subjective experiences within urban environments. The artist focused on the idea that the constantly changing landscape of the city, driven by the logic of vibrant and dynamic consumer capitalism, also exists as fragmented images within individual memories.

Hwang Wonhae layered translucent surfaces to depict fragmented city images from unclear memories, such as the light reflected on high-rise building windows, the rippling surface in water collected on the ground after rain, and the city shrouded in fog. This layering creates a blend of personal emotions and memories over the cityscape, which contains both consistency and flexibility.
 
In 2023, Hwang focused more on the process of how the superficial and physical images of the city settle into an individual's inner imagery, adding accidental forms to the rhythms embodied by the city. The elements in the artwork merge and collide, creating a new internal image that moves beyond the mere representation of the city's exterior. Through repetition and variation, new patterns emerge, revealing a deeper layer of emotional and subjective experience.

In her 2024 solo exhibition 《Hydra Square》 at The Reference, Hwang Wonhae explored the spaces of the city where temporary relationships form through the concept of "non-places." Hwang believed that the sensory experience of non-places, which are temporary and mixed spaces, aligns with the everyday sensory experiences of urban life today, where various heterogeneous attributes are intertwined.
 
To express this contemporary sensation, she extracted images of airports, a representative example of non-places today, from multiple layers and restructured the excessive, multisensory dynamism and the unique nature of these spaces on the canvas. Surrounding the painting, installation works that recreate the flowing motion of dynamic energy were scattered, revealing a space where different layers of membranes intertwine, erasing hierarchical structures.

In this way, Hwang Wonhae has been experimenting with a unique visual language that spans across various media and modes of expression, based on the things she has internalized as an individual growing up in an urban environment. Her work abstractly expresses the incomplete and multisensory experiences of modern individuals living in dynamic yet desolate urban environments through multilayered compositions.

“Living in a city means confronting opposing senses every day. Sometimes it approaches very dynamically, and at other times, it suddenly feels dry and meaningless.” (Hwang Wonhae, in an interview with Pipe Gallery, October 10, 2023)

Hwang Wonhae holds both a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from Hongik University. Her recent solo exhibitions include 《Hydra Square》 (The Reference, Seoul, 2024), 《Curtain》 (Pipe Gallery, Seoul, 2023), 《Modular Vision》 (Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021), 《Facade in Facade》 (OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021), 《The Fourth Wall》 (Artsapce HYEONG, Seoul, 2020), and more.
 
Her works have also been featured in group exhibitions at Swimming Pool Gallery (Berlin, 2024), HWANGUMHYANG (Seoul, 2024), ARKO Art Center (Seoul, 2023), KICHE (Seoul, 2023), Jungganjijeom II (Seoul, 2023), Mimesis Art Museum (Paju, 2022), Seojung Art (Seoul, 2022), Pipe Gallery (Seoul, 2022), SONGEUN (Seoul, 2022), P21 (Seoul, 2020), and more.
 
She has been selected for the 22nd SONGEUN Art Award, 2021 OCI Young Creative, 2020 Public Art New Hero Award, with over ten awards to her name. Her works are part of the collections at the MMCA Art Bank, the Korea Embassy in Germany, and Danwon Museum of Art, among others.

References

• 황원해, Hwang Wonhae (Artist Website)
• 기체, 황원해 (KICHE, Hwang Wonhae)
• 퍼블릭아트, 2020 퍼블릭아트 뉴히어로 – 황원해
• 보안1942, 황원해 개인전 “판타스마고리아” (Boan1942, Hwang Wonhae Solo Exhibition “Phantasmagoria”)
• 공간 형, [서문] 제4의 벽 – 정현 (Artspace HYEONG, [Preface] The Fourth Wall – Hyun Chung) 
• OCI 미술관, 막의 막 (OCI Museum of Art, Facade in Facade) 
• 소마미술관, [서문] Modular Vision – 최재혁 (Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, [Preface] Modular Vision – Jaehyuck Choi) 
• 파이프 갤러리, Curtain 
• 더레퍼런스, 히드라 스퀘어 (The Reference, Hydra Square)