Starya, Sung

(b.1977)

2021 국민대학교 미술학 박사 PhD

2015 영국 골드스미스 런던대학교 창의적 문화적 기업가정신; 문화정책 박사수료

2005 미국 뉴욕대학교 아트 석사 MA - International Center for Photography 연계

2003 홍익대학교 회화과 석사 MFA

2001 홍익대학교 회화과 학사 BFA

주요 개인전

2024 별 작가, 희스토리, 한국등잔박물관, 용인

2023 퍼포먼스에서 스타더스트까지: 성희승의 아트라이프, 자하미술관, 서울

2022 우주숲, 솔트스톤 갤러리, 제주

2021 우주_( )Ⅳ, 세종문화회관 세종미술관, 서울

2020 동쪽에서 온 빛, 시카미술관, 김포

2019 보이는 것/보이지 않는 것, 갤러리 도스, 서울

2018 모닝스타, 스타갤러리, 서울

주요 단체전

2025 A4액션 2025: 빛의 혁명- 내가 그리는 민주주의, 국회의원회관, 서울

        Beyound the People, K-민주주의, 마루아트센터, 서울

2024 작가의 별, 4인전: 김덕용, 김선두, 성희승, 양대원, 갤러리 내일, 서울

        광주비엔날레 30주년 기념특별전, 시천여민, 광주시립미술관, 광주

        사운드 퍼포먼스, 모하비사막, 미국

2023 바디 퍼포먼스, 고비사막, 몽골

2022 아트쇼핑, 루브르 미술관, 파리, 프랑스

        아티스트 라이프, 주프랑스 한국문화원, 파리, 프랑스

       올해의 작가, 영국 사치아트 온라인 전시, 런던, 영국

2021 NFT작품 출품, 카카오클립아트 x 학고재NFT, 서울

소장처

삼성문화재단, 서울

영은미술관, 광주

도이치뱅크, 런던, 영국

포스갤러리, 북경, 중국

연세대학교 신촌캠퍼스, 서울

경기아트센터, 수원 

외 다수

Artist Statement

Encounters that linger in time - Eternal Becoming

Juyeon Lee l Exhibition Manager, Hakgojae Gallery

In The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the star is not a backdrop or a mere setting. It is the smallest possible space in which a relationship can come into being. Asteroid B-612, where the Little Prince once lived, is far too small to be called a world. Yet within it exist a single rose, two volcanoes, and the repeated time of care. The star is not presented as a fragment of the vast universe, but as a world scaled precisely to what one being can fully take responsibility for. While the world may expand endlessly in physical terms, the place where a relationship can truly take root is always limited. 

Visually, a star appears almost as a dot, nearly without shape. Here, the star functions less as an object to be observed than as a coordinate where memory, emotion, and relationship converge. For the Little Prince, the star is the place where the rose resides, a space that condenses the time spent caring for it. What matters is not the star itself, but how long one has stayed there. Among countless stars and roses, only one becomes “one’s own,” precisely because of the time devoted to it and the responsibility it entails. 

This structure becomes even clearer when the Little Prince arrives on Earth. In a field, he encounters thousands of roses, an overwhelming sight that unsettles the meaning he had believed his rose alone possessed. His world suddenly expands, yet within this vastness, there is no place where he himself can remain. It is only through his encounter with the fox that a relationship begins to take shape. 

The fox refuses immediate intimacy and tells the Little Prince that relationships are formed only through repetition: meeting at the same time each day, waiting for that time to arrive. As these meetings are repeated, the field—once merely one place among countless others—gradually transforms into a specific site shaped by time and accumulated sensation. It is no longer an anonymous space, but a place inhabited by relationship. What matters here is not the size of the space, but the density created through repetition and sustained attention. 

Through this experience, the Little Prince comes to understand that uniqueness does not arise from the rarity of an object, but from the care and responsibility bound to a particular place. At the end of the story, after the Little Prince has disappeared, the star no longer remains a site of physical dwelling. Instead, it becomes an image that endures absence. The stars in the night sky are transformed into memories that carry laughter—traces that attest to the fact that the relationship has not vanished.   

These reflections unfold naturally into the paintings of Hee Seung SUNG. The recurring dots, glimmers of light, and layered traces of color on her canvases may evoke stars or the cosmos, yet they are less the result of representation than impressions left behind by sensation. Her paintings do not seek to depict a specific place. Rather, they register the traces of time—of looking, of lingering—that have settled onto the surface. 

Eternal Becoming is the process of completing a language that has not yet reached its end. It does not attend to the moment when a form is resolved, but to the duration in which form continuously comes into being and drifts elsewhere. 

In her earlier works, the circle appeared repeatedly as the most primordial figure of completion. As a formal language encompassing circulation, repetition, and infinity, the circle extended beyond painting to merge with performance, photography, and video, holding both corporeality and concept within its orbit. Yet a sustained exploration of the triangle marked a turning point in her practice. The triangle is a structure that simultaneously contains stability and tension, generation and collapse—a minimal form capable of maximum vibratory effect. Through its engagement with the triangle, the circle is no longer an endpoint, but enters a phase of dismantling and reassembly within a field of tremor. 

The “star” emerges from this process as a locus where circle and triangle, completion and expansion, overlap within a single plane. It is less a shift in form than a trace of a changing way of perceiving the world. In the paintings, the star resists being reduced to a fixed symbol or narrative. While it may hold love, hope, and consolation, it ultimately becomes a question of the restoration of existence itself. The starlight encountered in the night sky amid the fractures of personal life becomes not a symbol, but a memory. In this moment, the star appears as a light that cannot be grasped, yet undeniably exists—something that cannot be possessed, yet nonetheless entered into relation; distant, yet continually exerting its influence. The artist gives abstract form to states that resist verbal articulation, a mode she describes as “hyper-abstraction”.

This becomes more evident through the material conditions that constitute the pictorial surface. The paintings do not disclose a single image all at once. Dots, short brushstrokes, and subtle chromatic variations gradually build density through repetition and layering, spreading gently in multiple directions rather than converging toward a fixed center. The surface resists immediate legibility, revealing different strata according to the duration of one’s gaze. 

While each work begins with an intuitive gesture, a consistent formal order and rhythm are sustained throughout the process. Repeated patterns may appear guided by sensation alone, yet every dot and brushstroke is placed with consideration for the overall balance and breathing of the surface. Chance functions as a permitted variation within structure, allowing freedom and tension, organic flow, and stability to coexist within a single field. The process unfolds through repeated pauses and resumptions, as new layers are laid over the traces of what came before. 

The restrained palette that has come to the fore in recent works further extends this trajectory. The shift from intense, direct color toward ivory, off-white, gray, and pastel tones does not signal a depletion of energy, but a movement toward deeper layers. Color functions as emotion, as time, as the density of energy itself. Sensitivity to the subtle chromatic variations found in nature becomes a crucial point of departure. The stars that appear within the paintings are at once singular and collective: each carries its own vibration and rhythm, yet together they form a unified field. The whole emerges through the individual, while the individual becomes more distinct within the whole. Rather than standing in opposition, the two interpenetrate, sharing a single breath.   

Seen from a distance, the viewer does not stand before a single image but within a field of light. Structure, flow, and a cosmic rhythm are first apprehended, yet the more one attempts to grasp them precisely, the more they begin to blur. Like stars in the night sky, countless points remain vividly present within darkness, yet evade capture when the gaze seeks to hold the whole. As one moves closer, an entirely different landscape unfolds. Even the untouched areas of the surface begin to register as light. The accumulated traces generate an expansive density that exceeds sensory measure. 

To see the stars, one must momentarily set aside the light of one’s immediate surroundings. Just as the eyes adapt to darkness, the viewer, too, must lower their sensory threshold before the surface yields a portion of its light. Like starlight that has traveled across light-years to reach the eyes of today, the light within the painting is a trace long in preparation. Before this light— perhaps already extinguished—we pause briefly, then return to the time of everyday life. 

These paintings do not offer answers; they open a field in which questions may arise. What matters is not what is seen, but how long one remains. From afar or up close, somewhere within that distance, the work waits for the quiet moment when each viewer’s breathing subtly begins to change.