4me4you Features - "Time Alone".
These compositions invite viewers into hushed, in-between moments—instances of reflection that feel both deeply personal and curiously distant. Working with a muted palette of greys, blues, and soft pinks, Han constructs a visual language rooted in stillness and ambiguity.
This aesthetic of restraint is part of a broader tradition in South Korean contemporary art. Artists like Lee Ufan and Park Seo-Bo explored minimalism and materiality, while Do Ho Suh and Kimsooja delved into memory through immersive installations.
Han, by contrast, turns to figuration—yet her approach is no less introspective. Her figures are not symbolic placeholders but quiet presences. They sit, they pause, they turn away. Their silence echoes a sensibility in Korean visual culture that privileges atmosphere over resolution, contemplation over clarity.
In Time Alone, Han draws directly from her lived experience in contemporary Seoul. The emotional resonance of these works is not shaped by narrative, but by rhythm, repetition, and restraint. A subtle gesture—a hand resting on a table, a figure leaning ever so slightly—becomes the focal point of an entire composition. Her process is rooted in observation, not only of others but of herself. Through her painting, Han identifies the uncanny within the ordinary, the poetry within the pause.
Rather than dramatising solitude, Han attends to it. Her paintings quietly persist, mirroring the introspective moments we often overlook in our own lives. With Time Alone, she gives space to stillness—and in doing so, offers us a moment to breathe.
Artist: Han Ji Min
