Art That Follows the Trajectory of Creation: Starya Sung’s “Eternal Becoming”

[Financial News]“The stars of the universe, built up by stacking layer upon layer of triangles, are not something you can hold in your hand, but they are part of a process of becoming something.”A solo exhibition by artist Starya Sung, who depicts stars of the universe by layering triangles on canvas, is being held in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Hakgojae Gallery announced on the 15th that it will present “Eternal Becoming” through February 7. The exhibition title carries the meaning of “eternal becoming.”
Featuring 17 paintings, the exhibition showcases the original artistic universe that Sung has built up over many years. She does not regard a painting as a merely finished result. Instead, she defines it as the very “process” of ceaseless making and movement. Her work focuses on the time and sensations that lead up to the formation of an image, as well as the flow of change that continues even after a work is completed.
In Sung’s practice, painting is not the act of faithfully transferring visible objects onto the canvas. Rather, it is the accumulation of repeated brushstrokes and time, layered one over another on the surface. The strata of sensations she experiences while confronting her subject are transformed into a visual structure.
From circles and triangles to the “stars” she now paints, the core idea running through Sung’s worldview is “becoming.” She believes that no existence is fixed; everything is constantly expanding, dissolving, and being reborn.
This exploration began with the “circle.” By repeatedly painting circles, which symbolize perfection and circulation, she sought to embrace the world. Her gaze then shifted to the “triangle.” The triangle is a form that is stable yet charged with tension, generating intense energy within a minimal shape. Through this process, the circle ceased to be a fixed destination and instead became one stage in which it wavers, breaks, and transforms into new forms.
Encountered at the exhibition venue, Sung said, “Everything, including people, changes constantly over time. In the end, the original form almost disappears,” adding, “But that first form does not vanish completely; it remains somewhere as a trace. I wanted to express in painting this process of becoming something.”
Condensed light, and the beginning of relationships. The “stars” that appear in her recent works do not narrate any specific story. They are the point at which the circles and triangles she has long explored, and the ideas of completion and expansion, meet on a single surface, and they serve as a record of how her perception has evolved.
For Sung, stars are light that cannot be grasped yet undeniably exists, and they signify relationships in which things mutually influence one another. They condense her personal memories and the light she has encountered in the gaps between existences.
Brushstrokes as prayer and meditation. The works on view resemble spiritual practice or meditation. Within the rhythm of repeated dots and lines, order and freedom coexist. Rather than closing with the full stop of “completion,” the pictorial surface remains open as time “in progress.” Viewers share in the time of a painting that refuses closure and continues to generate itself, projecting their own sensations and memories into it.

In particular, the 2025 work Eternal Becoming, measuring 283 cm in width by 257 cm in height and hung at the entrance to the exhibition space, clearly reveals Sung’s working process. The large, underlying triangular form painted with a broad brush remains visible, and the interior is partially filled with small triangles. Normally, she would fill the entire surface with small triangles, but in this work she stopped midway. It reveals a state of becoming.

There is also a work that offers a glimpse of changes to come. In Eternal Becoming, created between 2021 and 2025, patches of white light appear here and there on the surface. This is not white paint applied on top; rather, they are areas left unpainted, like holes, where the original color of the canvas beneath is exposed.
Sung explained, “Because I have been working by continuously layering things on the canvas, I also wanted to show the original state in which nothing has been done,” adding, “Going forward, I would like to explore this way of working more.”

Her representative work Blue Star (2024) is also designed as a process of encountering the painting. Seen from a distance, the viewer first senses the structure, flow, and overall rhythm of the surface. As one moves closer, the trembling of the brushstrokes, the movement of the hand, and the accumulation of time become apparent. The unpainted areas of the canvas function as elements in their own right, forming spaces where the gaze can rest.
In particular, viewers naturally adjust their distance and pace in front of the work, becoming aware of their own breathing and gaze.
Hakgojae Gallery commented, “Sung’s paintings do not so much demand interpretation as they respond to the time viewers spend with them and the movement of their gaze, gradually opening up,” adding, “They function as a place to experience the subtle shifts in materiality and action that precede images, and in the act of viewing itself.”
rsunjun@fnnews.com Yoo Sun-joon Reporter