The Urgency of Art Prize 2026 Shortlisted
04
By The Urgency of Art Team
Jul 2026 Issue 18
12 min read
The Urgency of Art Prize 2026
Short Listed - Seohyun Oh
Seohyun Oh is a South Korean painter based in London whose practice examines landscape as
a psychological and perceptual space rather than a fixed geography. Working from observation,
memory, and imagination, she constructs environments that remain in constant flux. Forms
emerge, dissolve, and shift; horizons blur; atmosphere carries as much weight as structure.
Rather than depicting specific places, her paintings reconstruct landscapes shaped by
sensation, recollection, and emotional experience.
Influenced by Korean ink painting and East Asian art history, Oh remains attentive to breath,
restraint, and the active presence of empty space. An understanding of impermanence
underpins her approach. While her materials and scale are distinctly contemporary, these
traditions continue to inform her sensitivity to tonal balance, suggestion, and spatial openness.
Veins of the Earth,41x31cm - Seohyun Oh
Coverage by The Urgency of Art Magazine.
Light and atmosphere are central to her practice. Colour is used to register movement, rhythm,
and duration rather than to describe objects. Through layers of paint, gestures, and erasure,
surfaces retain traces of revision, allowing earlier decisions to remain visible. Each painting
becomes a field of shifting perception, where meaning emerges gradually through accumulation,
absence, and change.
At the heart of Oh's practice is an exploration of transformation. She approaches landscape as a
condition of continual change—an arena where memory, imagination, and observation intersect.
Trees, horizons, light, and weather appear only as fragments, inviting viewers into spaces that
hover between reality and dream. Rather than offering fixed narratives, her paintings remain
open and unresolved, encouraging moments of quiet reflection and sustained looking.
Oh received her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, following a BFA in
Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been
exhibited internationally across the United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, South Korea, China, and
the United States. Through painting, she continues to investigate how memory, place, and
perception shape one another, proposing a vision of reality that is fluid, provisional, and
perpetually in motion.
Messenger in Blue, 30x24cm - Seohyun Oh.
Coverage by The Urgency of Art Magazine.
Where the ice learns to melt, 60x60cm - Seohyun Oh
Coverage by The Urgency of Art Magazine.
Supernatural Allies. 40x30cm - Seohyun Oh
Coverage by The Urgency of Art Magazine.