Calling everyday life
anew, in paint
The breath and landscape of the everyday, named again.The 〈refresh〉 series, on tour through Gwangju, Goheung, Busan, and Seoul.
refresh —
calling the everyday anew
Park Suji is a mid-career painter who calls the breath and landscape of everyday life anew through her 〈refresh〉 series. She graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at Musashino Art University in Japan in 2016, where she built the painterly language that carries her work today.
The 〈refresh〉 series has unfolded as a tour: 〈refresh Seoul〉 at Noeul Artisan Center and 〈refresh Busan〉 at Gallery 177 in 2024, then 〈refresh Gwangju〉 at Gallery Chungjang 22 and 〈refresh Goheung〉 at Dohwaheon Museum of Art in 2025. Across these venues, ordinary scenes — the rhythms and views of daily life — are summoned back into attention through painting.
Her practice is not confined to one register. The 2020 solo exhibition 〈Eoheung〉 at Art Space At drew on the humour of the tiger, while her earlier work was shown in the 2017 solo exhibition 〈The Painting Is Fresh〉 at THE PLOT GALLERY and in invitational exhibitions in Japan. The tone that runs through her painting is clear and fresh.
Beyond the studio, she has taught — delivering the special lecture “Interpreting the Unconscious” at Sejong Academy of Science and Arts in 2018 and 2024. Her painting 〈Black Hole〉 (2025) entered the collection of Dohwaheon Museum of Art.
Major themes
- 1
The 〈refresh〉 series
The breath and landscape of everyday life, called anew through painting — a tour that moved through Gwangju, Goheung, Busan, and Seoul.
- 2
Oil painting from Musashino
A painterly language built in the Department of Oil Painting at Musashino Art University, Japan — clear and fresh in tone.
- 3
The humour of the tiger
The 2020 solo exhibition 〈Eoheung〉 leaned into the playful, good-humoured figure of the tiger.
The artist's timeline
- 2015BANKAN invitational exhibition, Japan.
- 2016Graduates from the Dept. of Oil Painting, Musashino Art University; graduation exhibition; the Five Art Exhibition at the National Art Center, Roppongi, Japan.
- 2017Solo exhibition 〈The Painting Is Fresh〉, THE PLOT GALLERY; BANKAN encore invitational exhibition, Japan.
- 2018Special lecture "Interpreting the Unconscious," Sejong Academy of Science and Arts.
- 2020Solo exhibition 〈Eoheung〉, Art Space At.
- 2024Solo exhibitions 〈refresh Busan〉 (Gallery 177), 〈refresh Seoul〉 (Noeul Artisan Center), 〈refresh〉 (Seolmijae Museum of Art); group exhibition 〈Simultaneous〉 (N2 Art Space); special lecture at Sejong Academy of Science and Arts.
- 2025Solo exhibitions 〈refresh Gwangju〉 (Gallery Chungjang 22), 〈refresh Goheung〉 (Dohwaheon Museum of Art); 〈Black Hole〉 enters the Dohwaheon Museum of Art collection.
Selected exhibitions & collections
- Solo exhibitions: 〈refresh Gwangju〉 (Gallery Chungjang 22, 2025), 〈refresh Goheung〉 (Dohwaheon Museum of Art, 2025), 〈refresh Busan〉 (Gallery 177, 2024), 〈refresh Seoul〉 (Noeul Artisan Center, 2024), 〈refresh〉 (Seolmijae Museum of Art, 2024)
- Solo exhibitions: 〈Eoheung〉 (Art Space At, 2020), 〈The Painting Is Fresh〉 (THE PLOT GALLERY, 2017); BANKAN encore invitational exhibition, Japan (2017); BANKAN invitational exhibition, Japan (2015)
- Group exhibitions: 〈Simultaneous〉 (N2 Art Space, 2024); the Five Art Exhibition at the National Art Center, Roppongi, Japan (2016); Musashino Art University graduation exhibition, Japan (2016)
- Collection: Dohwaheon Museum of Art — 〈Black Hole〉 (2025)
Three essays —
on the everyday, named again
1Oil painting, learned in Musashino
Park Suji studied in the Department of Oil Painting at Musashino Art University in Japan, graduating in 2016. It is there that the foundation of her painting was laid — the handling of oil, the building of a surface, the clear and fresh tone that would later run through the 〈refresh〉 series.
Her early work was shown across Japan: the graduation exhibition and the Five Art Exhibition at the National Art Center in Roppongi in 2016, and invitational exhibitions under the BANKAN name in 2015 and 2017. These years in Japan are the ground from which her practice grew.
2〈refresh〉 — calling the everyday
The 〈refresh〉 series takes the breath and landscape of everyday life and names it again in paint. It is not a record of the extraordinary but a renewed attention to the ordinary — the scenes one passes without seeing, returned to the surface of a canvas and held there.
The series travelled. 〈refresh Seoul〉 at Noeul Artisan Center and 〈refresh Busan〉 at Gallery 177 in 2024; 〈refresh Gwangju〉 at Gallery Chungjang 22 and 〈refresh Goheung〉 at Dohwaheon Museum of Art in 2025. City after city, the same gesture: the everyday, called by name.
3A clear tone, and the humour of the tiger
What holds Park Suji's work together is tone — clear and fresh, light without being slight. Even when the subject is the ordinary, the surface carries a brightness that asks the viewer to look again.
Her register is not single. The 2020 solo exhibition 〈Eoheung〉 at Art Space At drew on the humour of the tiger, a figure of play and good wishes in Korean tradition. Earlier, the 2017 solo exhibition 〈The Painting Is Fresh〉 at THE PLOT GALLERY announced, in its very title, the freshness she has kept pursuing since.
From the studios of Musashino to the touring rooms of 〈refresh〉, Park Suji has pursued a single, quiet task: to call the everyday by name, and to make a viewer look again at what they had stopped seeing. She joins this campaign not as a subject of its cause but as a fellow artist in solidarity — so that those who come after might keep painting.
Selected Works
4 works are featured here.
Park Suji joined this campaign in solidarity with fellow artists. Every work sold flows directly into the artists' mutual-aid loan fund— a purchase becomes the next month's lifeline for an artist navigating financial exclusion today.
