June Hwajung. On my way to you
Reinsburgstraße 68A
March 27 – April 25, 2026
Opening – June Hwajung is present
Friday, March 27, 2026, 6 pm – 9 pm
The painterly practice of June Hwajung is deeply influenced by his long engagement with traditional Korean art. His works begin with a layer of thin Korean paper applied across the entire canvas. He then paints more sheets of Korean paper with watercolor, cuts out pieces, and attaches them to the prepared surface. This collage-like process generates a nuanced spatial depth with a strong structural presence. Occasionally, he adds a figurative accent at the end using black Korean ink.
In the “Garden” series, the garden appears as a contradictory space where nature and human desire intersect. Although it resembles a natural environment, the garden is shaped by continuous acts of selection, placement, care, and removal. Some plants are protected, while others are excluded. This logic closely mirrors structures of belonging and exclusion, settlement and displacement.
"The garden is a place where plants of uncertain origin grow side by side. Some take root and remain, while others appear briefly before disappearing. This garden became a metaphor for migration, adaptation, and fragile belonging, resonating deeply with my personal experiences." Gradually, the garden expands beyond a private memory into a broader social framework. Despite increasing global connectivity, boundaries of identity and nation become more rigid. The garden functions not as an idyllic natural space, but as a constructed system where human intervention, classification, and quiet resistance coexist. The work asks under what conditions we survive, and where we are allowed to take root.
The second series in the exhibition, “Domestic Disorientation”, addresses the condition that emerges after the logic of care and control, once embodied by the garden, migrates into the domestic interior. While the home appears to be the most private of spaces, it is also where social norms and expectations of life are subtly repeated and internalized. This series focuses on moments when that alignment begins to fail.
Figures are absent. Instead, the compositions are formed by domestic objects, worn-out tools, displaced items, and potted plants. Items that have lost their function but have not been removed reveal a state of life that no longer conforms to expectations of productivity or proper use. The garden reappears in miniature as potted plants within the home. Although living, these plants exist under entirely artificial conditions, dependent on constant care. Their conditional survival mirrors bodies that must continually adjust and recalibrate after migration. Care here does not lead to stability, but to ongoing regulation.
Color is deliberately excessive and vivid. While it echoes the images of bright, liberated lives circulated through media, within this space it becomes a surface that exposes fatigue and instability. Domestic Disorientation presents the home as a space that no longer offers orientation, where life no longer aligns naturally.
June Hwajung (born 1991 in Jeonju, South Korea) received his BFA in Korean Arts from the JeonBuk National University, Jeonju, South Korea in 2015 and is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria in the class of Daniel Richter.