An Sohyeon crosses roles — actor and visual artist. Porsche Dreamers On Artists selection, silent dance film *LUNATIC*, photographic prints that translate frozen time.
An Sohyeon stands both in front of and behind the camera.
Actor and visual artist. These two roles do not compete within her; they help each other. Emotion and instant, learned by an actor's body, enters the photographer's frame; distance and composition, honed by the photographer's frame, supports her acting.
From Sangmyung to Gallery Bresson
An Sohyeon graduated in 2016 from Sangmyung University's Department of Photography, Video, and Media. The following year, 2017, she held her first solo LUCK 喜 at Gallery Bresson, followed by CITY OASIS (2018), NEW REMINISCENCE (2021), Authentic City (2023) at the same gallery, and then Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital's ArtCube and Noeul Artisan Center's My Name Is (2024).
Solo titles trace a flow. Luck (喜) → City Oasis → New Reminiscence → The Authentic City → My Name. A journey approaching herself through the city as medium.
Porsche, and LUNATIC
2021 was a doubled year for An Sohyeon.
As a visual artist, she was selected for Porsche Dreamers On Artists 20 and exhibited at Gwangju Design Biennale. She also appeared that year at Seoul Arts Center SEEA 2021, and Gallery Bresson's A Photographer's Way of Travel.
As a filmmaker, she directed and starred in LUNATIC. A silent dance film. It received awards and invitations at 10+ international independent film festivals — New York, Paris, Moscow, others. The same year she directed the short film Companion Bot.
Between 2020 and 2025 she also recorded appearances in ads — Ministry of Employment and Labor, Hyundai Oilbank, Porsche, Google Ads, LG U+ — and films including Mirage, Birth of Tragedy, Pung, REDLINE, Mother-Like Mother.
Only Love Is the Answer
In 2023, An Sohyeon published a book: Only Love Is the Answer: Birth of Sense (as Anso-Ju). Work across text, image, and performance. The same year, she developed and released her own SOYCOPASS IP NFT.
"My work is always rooted in 'boundary' — recording the gap between image and language, daily life and art, emotion and structure."
The artist's own definition. The boundary her two roles — actor and visual artist — create becomes instead the soil where her work grows.
NEW REMINISCENCE — Language in Photography
Beside her NEW REMINISCENCE series she wrote this.
"Sometimes, though not in my own language, I feel the lyrics of a song. Shunza's 寫一首歌 APRIL 5 1969 was like that. The Chinese language with resonance that her clear voice released seemed to sing a love of the depths, as if recalling something. Photography too has language. I have worked like a song — interpreting the language inside time and space I accidentally froze."
A view seeing photography as frozen language. Language is already inside the instant caught by the camera, and the artist interprets it to hand to the viewer. That interpretation makes the dreamlike color and gap of perception.
Three SAF Works
An Sohyeon contributes three works to SAF — all pigment prints.
- Untitled — 2018, 73×106.5 cm
- Authentic City — 2023, 60×80 cm
- Authentic City — 2023, 40×50 cm
84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists cycle into a mutual-aid fund, returning as low-interest loans to fellow artists.
An actor performs a given script; a photographer captures a given scene. Both are matters of choice. Which script to take, which scene to frame. Choosing a work at SAF is the same kind of choice. One viewer's selection can change another artist's working environment.
Record of Boundary
An Sohyeon's practice is a record of boundaries. Between actor and photographer, image and language, daily life and art, emotion and structure.
SAF sits on a boundary too. Between art and livelihood, individual and community, market and solidarity. The moment an artist's work becomes another artist's future — within that gap — may be one of the most concrete sites of the boundary An Sohyeon has recorded all her life.
Works by An Sohyeon
Related reading
If this piece helped, you may also enjoy these related articles:
- Preparing a Young Artist First Solo Show: A Six-Month Roadmap — A first solo show is a singular threshold in an artist's life. This guide synthesizes emerging artists' experiences into a six-month preparation roadmap.
- Four First-Time Collectors Share Their Stories — The moment of buying a first artwork is different for everyone. A first paycheck, a mother's birthday, a new home after divorce — four collectors who bought their first works through SAF tell their stories.
- Lee Yun-yop — A "Dispatched Artist," Carving the Texture of Labor in Multi-Color Woodblock — Lee Yun-yop, master of Korean multi-color woodblock. "Dispatched artist" activist, industrial rubber matting medium, farmer/worker motifs, MMCA collection — with 5 curated picks.
View all works by An Sohyeon →
Related Reads
Artists on the Same Path
- 최재란 — Between Quarks and Kairos: Choe Jaeran's Suwon, Photographs of Time
- 정금희 — A Flower Falls and Becomes Earth — All Is of the Mind: Jeong Geumhui's Hwarakyito
- 김호성 — Sticker-cher and the 24-Hour Unmanned Gallery: Kim Hoseong's Medium Experiments
Collecting Guides
Seed Art Festival
Published April 20, 2026
