Internationally recognized for her media-based practice, artist Moon Kyungwon presents a striking transition into painting with her new series ‘Soft Curtain’, which will debut at “Frieze New York 2025”. The fair, held at The Shed, a leading multidisciplinary cultural venue in Manhattan, will run from May 7 to 11.

Moon, widely known for her collaborative media installations and video works with artist Jeon Joonho, will for the first time unveil a solo body of paintings. Gallery Hyundai will feature a dedicated solo presentation of Moon’s work, showcasing nine new canvases in a focused booth.
 
More than a mere shift in medium, ‘Soft Curtain’ reflects a deeper, personal transformation. One of the central works, Soft Curtain_Freedom Village, draws inspiration from Daeseong-dong, a civilian-controlled village situated along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. Through a carefully composed visual language, Moon renders the tension and invisibility of restricted zones, translating boundary and absence into a poetic landscape. The canvas reveals an intersection of reality and imagination, documentation and reconstruction—continuing her long-standing exploration of place, history, and perception.

Prompted in part by a recent deterioration in her vision, Moon has developed a new painterly mode that grapples with shifting conditions of perception and cognition. Her paintings hover between clarity and afterimage, light and shadow, posing a fundamental question: “Am I an observer of the landscape, or am I embedded within it?”

Gallery Hyundai said, “’Soft Curtain’ marks a pivotal moment in Moon Kyungwon’s practice, expanding her media-based inquiry into the realm of painting. This new series introduces a refined sensibility that fluidly transcends conventional boundaries of genre.”

Moon Kyungwon (b.1969), based in Seoul, is a leading contemporary artist whose diverse practice encompasses video, installation, performance, and now painting. Best known for her ongoing collaboration with Jeon Joonho, she has participated in major international exhibitions, including ‘The Hyundai Motor Series 2021’ at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), and the Korean Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Her work traverses the boundaries between technology and art, the personal and the political, the real and the fictional—probing the layered conditions under which images and experiences emerge in contemporary society. Through recurring themes such as communication, suspended time, and imagined futures, Moon invites audiences to reflect deeply and slowly.

This new body of paintings, born from a physiological shift in visual perception, signals a new phase in her artistic journey. It offers compelling evidence that Moon’s media-informed sensibility and philosophical inquiries remain profoundly resonant within the refined frame of painting.