Visit with Hyun Jung Ahn

Hyun Jung Ahn invites us inside her studio as she prepares for her two-person exhibition, Give and Take.

In Ahn’s minimalist paintings, shapes are sewn and painted into the canvas, creating a palpable tension that serves as an allegory to human connection and communication. Her selective use of color underscores the physical and visual balance of her shape-based compositions, and the sewn fabric’s physical boundary mirrors the painted geometries. This doubling effect is further accentuated by the diptych configuration of each set of paintings, the spatial relationship reflecting the perpetual call and response inherent within human relationships.

I’m interested in how relationships can be expressed through abstract visual language. The processes I use in my work - cutting, stitching, and connecting shapes, are all based on the concept of relationships in various ways.

Hyun Jung Ahn

My processes create images that rely on each other physically and visually. This can be found in seam lines between the fabrics, the slight gaps and tensions between shapes, and the subtly different color tones.

Hyun Jung Ahn

Sometimes I borrow elements from nature, but currently, my work explores the formal qualities of abstraction itself, and is composed of concise colors and condensed shapes. Each piece functions as a diptych or set of paintings, suggesting their own rhythm and narratives.

Hyun Jung Ahn