Questioning from the Inside: Works by SoHyun Bae

Questioning from the Inside: Works by SoHyun Bae is a thematic retrospective that celebrates Bae’s prolific career and explores themes of cultural memory, Korean history, Jewish mysticism, and the natural world. Bae uses rice paper, the muted palette of Korean ceramics, and the patterns of bojagi (Korean traditional patchwork wrapping cloth) within her work. 

Much of Bae’s work is influenced by the Jewish mystical concept of Shevirat ha-Kelim, which describes the world as a shattered vessel. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, encouraged Bae to study Jewish mysticism and inspired her to join the universal dialogue on the precariousness of life. Through her work, SoHyun Bae honors the fragmented roles, traditions, materials, and faces of her ancestors and herself. 

SoHyun Bae is an American painter living and working in New York. She is the recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Fine Arts, 2007; the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in the field of Painting, 2002; the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc. Grant, 2000; a Fellowship at Montalvo Art Center, 2019; a Fellowship at The Corporation of Yaddo, 2000; the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in conjunction with Virginia Center for Creative Arts, 1996; and a full scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1993. SoHyun Bae received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, 1990; a Master of Fine Arts from Boston University, 1994; and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1997 having studied with the Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel. Her works have been exhibited worldwide in galleries and museums including the Asian Art Museum of SF, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Seoul Arts Center Hangaram Museum, Museo Nacional di Visual Artes in Montevideo, Queens Museum, Sotheby’s, NY and Philips de Pury & Luxembourg. She has collaborated with the Martha Graham Dance Company on several occasions. She was invited as a Guest Artist for: Graham + Google, 2018 where she drew the dancers in 3D using Google’s latest technology; the MGDC Studio Series – GrahamDeconstructed: Steps in the Street with SoHyun Bae, 2019 where she drew the dancers LIVE; and the MGDC Studio Series – Graham and Tech, 2025 for the Premiere of Floes.

To learn more about SoHyun Bae’s work, please visit her website.