17/08/2026
The Color of Memory _ Redefining Painting as an “Artistic Memory Device” in the Age of AI and Semiconductors
Exhibition: Song Young-hoo Solo Exhibition, The Color of Memory
Dates: August 27 – September 19, 2026
Closed: Sundays and Mondays
Venue: K.O.N.G. Gallery, 38 Samcheong-ro 7-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
T. +82-2-738-7776
[Samcheong-dong, Seoul] K.O.N.G. Gallery presents The Color of Memory, the first major solo exhibition in Seoul by Song Young-hoo, who entered into an exclusive representation agreement with the gallery in 2026. Running from August 27 to September 19, the exhibition introduces Song’s distinctive experiments with media and painting to a broader international audience during September’s major art season in Korea, when global art events including Frieze Seoul, KIAF Seoul, and the Gwangju Biennale take place.
In an era of AI and memory semiconductors, when vast amounts of information are stored and erased at the speed of light, Song Young-hoo asks a fundamental question: How can painting preserve collective human memory and contemplate visual data?
A graduate of the Department of Oriental Painting at Hongik University and its graduate school, Song has spent more than a decade investigating the structural conditions that make painting possible. For the artist, the canvas is not simply a two-dimensional surface but an “artistic memory device” in which human perception and memory are accumulated.
Song’s process begins by recording everyday life with a digital camera. The captured images are then dismantled and transformed in virtual space before being repeatedly overprinted onto canvas using an inkjet printer. Through this process, immaterial digital pixels are translated into physical pigments and acquire material presence once again. Minute errors and unexpected overlaps generated during the mechanical printing process paradoxically create a sense of time and traces unique to painting, extending the work beyond the limitations of a purely mechanical process.