Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present Breath, Island, a solo exhibition of new paintings by South Korean artist Guimi You. Inspired by her recent solitary two-week journey to Korea’s Jeju Island, the works in this exhibition trace both the contours of the island’s volcanic terrain and the artist’s own inner landscapes. Through delicate, atmospheric brushwork and a sensibility rooted in East Asian painting traditions, You transforms Jeju’s flower-filled hillsides, lush botanic gardens, and quiet guest houses into intimate spaces of reflection and self-discovery. Breath, Island follows You’s inclusion in a number of recent institutional exhibitions, including those at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida.
Jeju Island, often described as Korea’s island of wind, stone, and women, holds a unique place in Korean cultural collective memory as both a natural sanctuary and nostalgic retreat. For You, its landscapes are both subject and mirror. Wandering its oreum (volcanic hills), resting beside ponds framed by blooming magnolia, or watching waterfalls carve their paths through black basalt, You allowed the rhythms of the island to shape her own: breath following landscape, painting following breath. Over time, her awareness surpassed the environment, reaching into the very experience of being alive.
Originally trained in East Asian painting, You’s understanding of East Asian pictorial traditions—where painting is not an act of depiction, but of evocation—anchors her approach. Her mark-making recalls the layered transparency of ink washes and the restrained harmony of traditional Korean landscapes, reminiscent of works like Jeong Seon’s Inwangjesaekdo, which capture not only form but atmosphere. Brushstrokes hover like mist, yet settle like memory.
At the same time, You’s years spent in the United Kingdom and United States imbued her practice with the materiality of oil painting and the structural dynamics of Western contemporary art. Her works exist between Eastern and Western legacies, and she approaches them through a lens of synthesis rather than negotiation. In her paintings, oil behaves like ink, and forms emerge with the lightness of thought. In balancing these disparate traditions, You’s paintings enter personal terrain—a space where East and West, past and present, landscape and self gently coalesce.
In Breath, Island, the act of painting is both record and refuge. Works such as Noble Silence (2025) depict the interior of the artist’s wooden guest house: a silent space that holds the sacred stillness of artistic solitude. Elsewhere, Rest (2025) captures figures lingering in a garden at the foot of Mt. Halla; here, human presence dissolves into landscape. In Pause (2025), a simple view of bonsai framed by a greenhouse window becomes a meditation on growth and restraint. Across the exhibition, traces of the artist herself—suggested silhouettes, personal objects, a figure mid-sketch—weave quietly throughout the scenes.
Breath, Island is less a chronicle of Jeju than a portrait of a painter in search of equilibrium. For You, painting is not a destination, but a passage: a way of translating identity into image and holding two worlds, East and West, within the same frame. In this sense, her paintings function as islands themselves—floating spaces where the memories of one place and the lessons of another can meet, pause, and breathe.
About the Artist
Guimi You (b. 1985, Seoul, South Korea; lives and works in Seoul) is a painter whose work explores the emotional resonance of landscapes, interiors, and moments of quiet solitude. Through a vibrant and poetic use of color, she creates atmospheric scenes that blend observation and imagination, capturing the fleeting sensations of memory, reflection, and presence. Her paintings often depict tranquil environments—flower-filled hillsides, still ponds, domestic spaces—that become sites for introspection and deeper engagement with the act of seeing.
Originally trained in East Asian painting, You’s understanding of its pictorial traditions—where painting is not an act of depiction, but of evocation—anchors her approach. Her mark-making recalls the layered transparency of ink washes and the restrained harmony of traditional Korean landscapes. After studying in South Korea, she lived in the United Kingdom and the United States, where she began working with oil paint and immersed herself in Western painting traditions. Her work now sits at the intersection of these two cultures, combining the delicacy and fluidity of ink with the depth and materiality of oil. Rather than portraying specific locations, her paintings conjure spaces shaped by memory and imagination, where color, brushwork, and atmosphere converge. Within these dreamlike environments, anonymous figures drift through scenes that feel both deeply personal and universally resonant, each one imbued with a quiet, otherworldly presence.
She has exhibited widely at institutions across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Notable presentations include group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Recent solo presentations include exhibitions at Almine Rech, London, Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, and Make Room, Los Angeles, among others.You’s work is included in public collections internationally, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; de Young Museum, San Francisco, California; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California; Roberts Institute of Art, London, United Kingdom; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; Museu Inima de Paula, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; X Museum, Beijing, China; Yuz Foundation, Shanghai, China; and the Seoul National University Museum of Art and College of Fine Art, South Korea, among others.
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