In Kyoung Chun: Make Room
Transparent houses, suspended structures, and intimate paintings serve as metaphors for belonging in this exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston.
In Kyoung Chun’s creative practice moves between painting and site-specific installation. Interactive works extend the language of painting beyond the canvas, inviting viewers into environments that challenge perception and encourage connection.
As an immigrant artist, Chun reflects on the shifting sense of home — both safe and fragile, stable yet impermanent. Transparent houses, suspended structures, and intimate paintings serve as metaphors for belonging, suggesting neighborhoods that are open and inclusive. By blurring boundaries between interior and exterior, personal and public, her work builds shared spaces where fragility and resilience coexist, and where the act of looking becomes an act of belonging. Her art constructs safe, quiet, joyful spaces in a turbulent world — propositions about how we might live with one another — then opens them up to bring the viewer inside.
Left: In Kyoung Chun, “Scented Creek Near My Place” (2023), watercolor and oil on canvas, 52 x 36 inches; Center: “Mirrored House” (2023), oil on canvas and Plexiglass, 18 x 18 x 3 inchesRight: “Narrow Path” (2025), watercolor on paper, 56 x 43 inches
In Kyoung Chun is a multidisciplinary artist born in Seoul, South Korea, and currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, institutions, and platforms, including Poem 88, HiLo Press, Dashboard, The New Gallery, Emory University, Sumter Gallery, Stove Works, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, NADA, Yi Gallery, Asian Art Contemporary, Swan Coach House Gallery, and an upcoming exhibition at Institute 193. Chun’s works are included in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, Goat Farm Arts Center, City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Atlanta Public Library, Georgia State University, and in numerous private collections, including that of the late master Larry Walker. Chun was a finalist for the Atlanta Artadia Award in 2025. She recently completed her three-year-residency at the Atlanta Contemporary and attended the Virginia Center for Creative Arts’ residency at le Moulin a Nef in France.
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston School of the Arts provides a multidisciplinary laboratory for the production, presentation, interpretation, and dissemination of ideas by innovative visual artists from around the world. As a non-collecting museum, we create meaningful interactions between adventurous artists and diverse communities within a context that emphasizes the historical, social, and cultural importance of the art of our time. Our exhibitions are free and open to the public.
In Kyoung Chun: Make Room is on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston through July 25, 2026.
The exhibition is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and is funded in part by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.
To learn more, visit halsey.charleston.edu.
