Seung Ah Paik: Suspended Landscapes
Bortolami
24 Apr – 30 May 2026
39 Walker, NYC
At Bortolami, Seung Ah Paik captures the surreal with unwavering confidence. Suspended Landscapes, a series of dreamlike reconstructions of the artist’s body, melds intimacy and violence, forcing the viewer to consider how much of each is necessary to create a coherent vision of the self.
The work rises eagerly to flood the senses. Rich reds, yellows, and ultramarines simmer against the stark gallery walls, while Paik’s undulating lines are at once powerful and achingly tender. Upon close inspection, the grainy surface of each piece seems to glitter in the light, lending the exhibition a distinct tactile appeal; it is easy to imagine the calico resisting and then giving way to the charcoal, to feel the elegant push and pull of Paik’s hand as she negotiates her line.
This sense of push and pull is palpable throughout the exhibition. The Body Cartography pieces bring the viewer close for an intimate, first-person view of the subject. In contrast, the Autolandscape pieces zoom back out to show each figure at a distance, swimming in horizonless fields of ultramarine violet and red-orange. A master of her style, Paik forces the familiar into conversation with the absurd; while the nuances of each muscle and fold are deftly articulated, for example, there is little to no visible shading. Basic physical realities of the body—the protrusion of fat, the shadow beneath the stomach and the breasts–are flattened into surreality, while others, such as the texture of toes and nipples, are rendered in intricate detail. Paik may be putting her body on display, but the viewer’s understanding of it is mediated entirely through her.
The artist takes her authority to the extreme with the five Self-Configuration pieces. Each painting stitches together multiple first-person views of the body, creating a pangaea of arms, legs, feet, and breasts. It is difficult to say how many bodies are present in each construction, and harder to pinpoint where one becomes another; the eye scans the piece over and over, looking for the exact point of interruption, which, when identified, will separate the fleshy mass into distinct, recognizable forms. There is none. These works were made to overwhelm.
Looming over the gallery space are Self-Configuration: Form 3 and Self-Configuration: Form 6, the exhibition’s two largest pieces, each measuring 141 3/4 × 94 1/2 in. Though they both feature the same stitched-together phantasmagorias seen in the other Self-Configuration pieces, Form 3 and Form 6 are unique in their sublime, oppressive stillness. Gone are Paik’s bright reds and ultramarines; instead, the flesh is presented hovering nervously against a pale backdrop, with rivulets of red and yellow bleeding down the calico. Powerful as they are, these forms seem to have suffered in the process of being constructed—and perhaps even in the process of being looked at.
To the left of Form 3 and Form 6, a small corner alcove offers refuge. In this space, three pieces —Body Cartography: Quinacridone Magenta 1, Body Cartography: Quinacridone Magenta 2, and Autolandscape: Ultramarine Violet—are displayed. They are small pieces, presenting more familiar views of the body: one overhead, two first-person. The viewer looks with the figure, then at it, then with it again, standing in the uneasy space between the self and the construction. Warmth brushes with discomfort; identification brushes with voyeurism. Slowly, the boundaries begin to disintegrate.
