Areum Yang (b. 1994 in Seoul, South Korea; lives and works in New York City) explores ideas of home, displacement, and in-betweenness. Born and raised in Korea and later relocating to New York for art school, Yang uses painting as a way to examine what it means to belong. Her compositions remain intentionally open-ended, presenting ambiguous narratives that question whether home is defined by place, memory, or relationships. Working with a combination of wet and dry materials (charcoal, pencil, collage, pastel, acrylic, oil) Yang builds layered surfaces that merge figure and ground. Birds and fish appear throughout her work, depicted both in states of captivity and freedom, functioning as recurring metaphors for movement between cultures. Figures, often loosely rendered, inhabit vibrant, improvisational environments where boundaries dissolve and atmosphere and subject become intertwined.
She holds a BFA from Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea and an MFA from CUNY Hunter College, New York. Yang also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2022.
Yang has been exhibiting at the Gallery since 2022 and has had solo exhibitions in 2024, 2023, and 2022. She has also been in group exhibitions at Harper’s, East Hampton (2024); Meliksetian Briggs Gallery, Dallas (2024); Long Story Short, Los Angeles (2023); Margot Samel, New York (2022); Mamoth, London, UK (2022); and Hauser & Wirth, New York (2021).