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Jong Rim Song: Where Memory Becomes Space

 

August 11–30, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, August 14, 2026, 6 - 8 p.m.

 

 

Paris Koh Fine Arts (509 West 23rd Street, Ground Fl., NYC) is pleased to present Where Memory Becomes Space, a solo exhibition by Jong Rim Song, on view from August 11 to 30, 2026. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Friday, August 14, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

 

In Where Memory Becomes Space, Jong Rim Song explores how memory, material, and perception converge to create new spatial experiences through abstract painting. Rather than depicting recognizable places, Song constructs visual environments where memory and material quietly coexist, transforming personal experiences into contemplative spaces of presence.

 

Song’s works are created through an accumulative process of layering fabric, newspaper, collage, paint, and found materials. Exposed edges, frayed threads, and textured surfaces preserve traces of time and the physical act of making. These materials extend beyond their formal qualities; they carry histories of use, labor, transformation, and lived experience, becoming vessels through which memory is embedded within the pictorial space.

 

Color functions as both emotional expression and structural foundation in Song’s practice. Expansive fields of red, blue, green, and black establish rhythm, weight, and spatial tension, while recurring geometric forms evoke walls, windows, architecture, or landscapes without becoming fixed representations. The openness of these compositions allows viewers to move between recognition and imagination, familiarity and ambiguity.

 

Although rooted in abstraction, Song’s paintings emerge from lived experiences—the memories of the studio, fragments of urban landscapes, architecture, and everyday encounters. These elements are not directly illustrated, but transformed into new visual structures where external reality and inner consciousness intersect.

 

Where Memory Becomes Space invites viewers into a contemplative realm where structure and intuition, material and memory remain in continuous dialogue. Through the transformation of accumulated traces into visual presence, Song’s paintings reveal memory not as something simply recalled, but as an active force that shapes how we perceive and inhabit the world.