(from left to right) Posters for the 2024 Graduation Exhibition for the Department of Painting and the Department of Sculpture
Every semester, SNU students at the end of their undergraduate studies busy themselves with preparations to graduate and move on to the next step of their life’s journey. For seniors in the College of Fine Arts, this means creating and organizing their masterpieces for their graduation exhibition that is held at the end of the year. As a year-long project, students prepare a series of artworks that is an accumulation of all the skills and talents they acquired throughout their undergraduate studies. The graduation exhibition for the graduating class of 2024 was held from November 28, 2024, to December 8, 2024, and divided into three smaller exhibition periods.
Exploring the Allures of Oriental Art with the Department of Oriental Painting
Poster for the 2024 Graduation Exhibition for the Department of Oriental Painting
The first exhibition period, held from November 28 to December 1, hosted the artworks of the students from the Department of Oriental Painting and the Department of Crafts. Students from the Department of Oriental Painting displayed their artwork across Buildings 50 and 51 of the College of Fine Arts, and in the Woosuk Gallery in Building 74 depending on which exhibition area was best suited with the color and theme of their artwork.
The 2024 graduating cohort of the Department of Oriental Painting consisted of 17 students. Over the course of the year, each student was tasked with creating a series of art pieces that reflected their own distinct artistry and artistic values. Although formal opportunities to receive feedback from their professors were provided during the creation process, much of it was self-directed from initial conception to the final display organization.
(from left to right, two artworks) Entry_Light and Entry_Dark - Yaejee Suh 2024
Yaejee Suh is one of the graduating students who exhibited her artwork in the 2024 graduation exhibition for the Department of Oriental Painting. Her representative artwork is a series called Entry, produced using oriental painting paper, a pencil, and black ink used in traditional Korean paintings called meok. These materials were deliberately chosen to create an artwork that reflects her own philosophy of how people view the world. “I believe that our eyes are a medium that determines the world we perceive ourselves to be in,” Suh said. When people open their eyes and interact with the world, they are engulfed in a world of light. Closing their eyes, on the other hand, gradually but quickly brings people into their inner world, one surrounded by darkness. Yet eyes also play an important role in bridging these two worlds, and the physical qualities of oriental painting paper helped reflect this idea: the silver-gray traces graphite leaves behind on the paper express the smooth transition between worlds of light and darkness that is possible thanks to people’s eyes. To allow the audience to more vividly experience this shift between the two worlds, the art pieces in Entry were deliberately sequenced to show the change in perception that occurs as people begin to open their eyes.
Yaejee Suh (Department of Oriental Painting) at her Graduation Exhibition
For Suh, the graduation exhibition was one that both celebrated the end of her undergraduate journey and signaled the start of a new chapter in her career as an artist. “I want to thank all my professors, peers, and family members who have supported me thus far in this journey and hope to grow further as an artist in years to come.”
The Charms of Ceramics and Metalwork, Brought to the Audience by the Department of Crafts
(from left to right) Posters for the 2024 Graduation Exhibition for the Ceramics Major and the Metalwork Major
Alongside the Department of Oriental Painting, the graduating students of the Department of Crafts also hosted their graduation artworks in the same time frame. Further divided into the Ceramics Major and the Metalwork Major, the exhibition for the Department of Crafts was hosted in two separate locations, selected to reflect the overall theme and style of the students’ artworks.
Things what I need - Seoyeon Jang, 2024
Seoyeon Jang was one of the six graduating students from the Metalwork Major. After a yearlong process of drafting, creating, and revising her work, Jang exhibited three final products that embodied her identity as an artist and her approach to metalwork. One of her pieces was a windchime titled Things what I need. Created using copper, brass, and mixed material, the initial idea for Things what I need sprung from the small thought that she wanted to make something that she needed. From there, Jang further refined the concept and eventually developed the final question that guided her work: if I had to give up everything else in the world and could only keep three things, what would be the three things that I absolutely need? For Jang, these three necessary things were love, faith, and a little bit of luck. With the expectation that these three necessities would eventually come to her, Jang decided to create a windchime that represented them. Like how windchimes notify people when guests arrive, she hopes that the windchime Things what I need will let her know when love, faith, and a little bit of luck are at her doorstep.
Pursuing the Depths of Multimedia Artwork with the Media Arts Interdisciplinary Major
The second set of exhibitions was held from December 5 to 8 and involved the Department of Painting, Department of Sculpture, and the Media Arts Interdisciplinary Major. A total of 22 students from the Department of Painting, 12 students from the Department of Sculpture, and five students from the Media Arts Interdisciplinary Major exhibited their graduation pieces across the four days.
The Right Way of Madness animation-based performance ‘Welcome to the lab Cluster’ - Sumin Kim, 2024
For her graduation exhibition piece, Sumin Kim from the Media Arts Interdisciplinary Major created an interactive musical animation piece The Right Way of Madness. The Right Way of Madness is a piece that illustrates the infinite creative potential that art can possess when different media come together. Combining performative arts, animation, voice acting, and olfactory arts, Kim’s exhibition took its audience on a journey through the senses, imparting to them the idea that the sensations art can provide are limitless.
Although the sheer scale of intermixing such a wide range of different art forms served as a huge challenge and brought many obstacles, Kim expressed how this final graduation exhibition project helped her grow as an artist. “Working with a great variety of people was certainly difficult at times but the process also brought me joy as I built new relationships and connections. I would like to thank everybody who contributed to making this project possible and supported me throughout.” Moving onwards with the courage she nurtured to create The Right Way of Madness, Kim plans to invest herself in revisiting the project and completing it as an animation in 2025.
Bringing Imagination to Life with the Department of Design
Poster for the 2024 Graduation Exhibition for the Department of Design
The graduating students of the Department of Design hosted their exhibition from November 28 to December 3 in Building 49. A total of 45 students participated with 16 from the Industrial Design Major Students and 29 from the Visual Communication Design Major. Graduating students from the Industrial Design Major were tasked with presenting two design projects from two different domains which included mobility design, spatial design, and living design. Similarly, Visual Communication Design Major students created two projects, each from a different discipline such as graphic design, media design, brand design, and UX/UI design.
GRGRG - Jimin An, 2024
Jimin An, a graduating student from the Visual Communication Design Major, constructed and exhibited projects for the brand design and graphic design sections. For her brand design project, she created and branded a mill store called GRGRG that was targeted at younger age groups. Making active use of more modern design concepts that are familiar to younger generations, GRGRG aimed to reconstruct the idea of a mill store to transform it into a new cultural space for the youth. Underlying this goal was a deeper motive to push the audience to revisit the stereotype that mills are merely a relic of the past.
Mincho Busters - Jimin An, 2024
An's project for the graphic design section was a cute game called Mincho Busters. Using the hotly debated topic of mint chocolate, or Mincho in Korean, Mincho Busters is a game where players must control the Mincho Busters character to eliminate the Mincho monsters who are out to turn other flavors of ice cream into mint chocolate. These Mincho monsters have a tragic backstory, where they are actually scoops of mint chocolate ice cream that have transformed into monsters due to the hate they have received from anti-mint chocolate consumers. The project’s vibrant colors, adorable character, and the game’s simple yet heart-wrenching plot attracted many visitors as they came to explore the diverse projects by the Department of Design students.
The graduation exhibitions of the students of the College of Fine Arts provide a unique opportunity to tangibly visualize the culmination of undergraduate studies at SNU. The exhibitions present new artistic values and visions every year, a testament to the creativity of SNU’s artists. We congratulate all the graduating students of 2024 on finishing their undergraduate studies and wish them good luck in their future endeavors.
Written by Yeryoung Lee, SNU English Editor, yeryounglee@snu.ac.kr