“Stickymonger’s contemporary art practice is a harbinger of surrealist worlds where slender female figures run amok. The New York-based artist sustains a heightened focus on spray paint medium, using personally-developed techniques to slip her cast of stoic characters into various uniforms and atmospheres that recall her own real life experiences. Although female, these subjects are meant to relate to all of the sexes as they are surrounded by pictorial narratives that have been commonly lived through or imaginatively dreamt of — whether it’s sitting for a family portrait, reading a book or mounting a pink alligator to find the best pancake recipe. Oftentimes, the artist plays the role of a time traveler, unleashing visual cues that permeate moments of the past, present and future. One intimate episode involves a childhood experience of growing up in a suburban town in South Korea. As a child, she played hide and seek in her family’s gas station garages that were bedaubed with petroleum puddles that mirrored the gloomy visuals portrayed in the series. When she isn’t lurking in chapters of her own life, Stickymonger probes a vast array of topics including immigration, technology, class, and the economy albeit veiled in dreamlike scenes. The artist’s muse is her sporadic mind that reflects the beautiful yet sometimes dark menagerie of humanity.
As she navigates shows in galleries and museums across the world, the artist creates imaginative universes that merge elements of reality and surreality.In 2018, Stickymonger’s spray works made their debut in a solo exhibition called “Searching for Something That Isn’t There” in NewYork City’s AFA Gallery. These visceral compositions were crafted using black and white paint that stems from her childhood experience of growing up in a suburban town in South Korea. In 2019, Stickymonger’s “Parallel Universe” exhibition in Hong Kong featured a series of vivid tondo works that portrayed otherworldly sequences of her doleful characters. In 2020, the artist installed her first-ever towering sculpture of a polka-dotted female subject embracing a gentle-looking monster for a solo exhibition called “LONESOME PLANET” in Dubai’s Four You Gallery. In 2021, she was featured in Allouche Gallery’s pop-up group exhibition “4 in LA” with the late iconic street artist Bast where she showed monochromatic aerosol paintings that explored notions of a “bright future.” Later that year, Stickmonger helmed the role of a curator for a group exhibition that focused on spray paint works by inviting masterful artists of the medium such as Michel Reeder UFO907 andPaul Insect to create unconventional pieces to go on display. ” The exhibition challenged the common perception of spray paint artworks as just merely graffiti by categorizing it as a fine art medium. Stickymonger was the spotlight of a solo exhibition under Woaw Gallery for the first-ever CAN ArtFair in Ibiza. The artist presented a new body of paintings that punctuated the tension between “hot” and “cold” motifs. More recently, Stickymonger is preparing to launch her first ever solo exhibition in Madrid’s VILLAZAN Gallery called “It Was Very Good Year, Kind Of” which features a new range of works that is perhaps her most personal and conceptual ones yet.
Through her relentless pursuit in mastering the medium of spray paint, Stickymonger continues to elevate her compositions that offer onlookers a portal into a surreal shadow-world of contradictions: as inviting as it is ominous, both delightful and disconcerting” – Keith Estiler
D.D.D | NANZUKA 2G, 3110NZ by Nanzuka Underground, Tokyo, Japan - 2023
Eat, Play, and Whatever | WOAW Gallery, Untitled Art Fair. Miami, USA.
It Was Very Goog Year, Kind Of | VILLAZAN Gallery, Madrid, Spain | 10/15 ~ 12/10/2022
Thank You Plastic | ART021 Shanghai - WOAW Gallery, Shanghai, China | 11/11 ~ 11/14/2021
Still Smiling | Allouche Gallery, New York, USA | 03/13 ~ 04/17/2021
Lonesome Planet | Four You Gallery, Dubai, UAE | 02/19 ~ 03/11/2020
Parallel Universe | Unveiled Limited with Space27, Hong Kong, China | 05/17 ~ 05/26/2019
On a Clear Day | Hidari Zingrao Gallery, Tokyo, Japan | 04/05 ~ 04/23/2019
Searching For Something That Isn’t There | AFA Gallery, New York, USA | 11/15 ~ 12/02/2018
Jelly Bean Blast | Wootbear Gallery , San Francisco, USA | 06/17 ~ 07/13/2017
Jammed | Superchief Gallery, New York, USA | 04/15 ~ 04/21/2016
Cosmic Girls | Everyday Mooonday Gallery, Seoul, Korea | 01/15 ~ 03/27/2016
Eye see you, you see eye | Bunny Cutlet Gallery, New York, USA | 01/10 ~ 20/2014
Brick by Brick | Ross+Kramer Gallery, New York, USA. 2023
As Friends & Partners | WOAW Gallery, Singapore, Singapore. 2023
Familia | WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong, China. 2022
Tides (NFT) | Nifty Gateway, Online. 2022
Spray Painterly | Allouche Gallery, New York, USA | 10/21 ~ 11/16/2021
Familia | WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong, China | Curated by Pablo Villazan | 08/19 ~ 9/18/2021
Tides (NFT) | Nifty Gateway, Online | 07/22/2021
“Asians Belong Here” | Roosi, Ki Smith Gallery, SaveArtSpace, New York, USA | 07/19 ~ 08/07/2021
Superplastic: The Janky Heist (NFT) | Christie’s, New York, USA | 07/09 ~ 07/22/2021
Works on Paper | WOAW Gallery x Avante Arte , Hong Kong, China | 06/18 ~ 07/07/2021
4 in LA | Allouche Gallery, Los Angeles, USA | 05/19 ~ 05/31/2021
Volta | Artual Gallery, Basel, Switzerland | 06/10 ~ 06/15/2019
Frieze Art Fair | Kaikai Kiki Gallery, New York, USA | 05/01 ~ 05/05/2019
Art Basel | Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Hong Kong, China | 03/29 ~ 03/31/2019
FEMME | Juxtapoz Project Space, Jersey City, NJ, USA | 03/01 ~ 03/29/2019
DAYP | Myplasticheart, New York, NY, USA | 04/27 ~ 05/25/2018
EAST/WEST | Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA | 01/13 ~ 02/17/2018
7th Annual Supersonic Invitational | Spoke-Art, NY, USA | 01/06 ~ 01/28/2018
JUXTAPOZ Clubhouse | Superchief Gallery, Miami, FL, USA | 12/ 6 ~ 12/10, 2017
CIRQUE NOIR | AFA Gallery, New York, NY, USA | 10/01 ~ 10/22/2017
Formations | Giant Robot Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA | 02/04 ~ 02/22, 2017
Tower to Streets | World Trade Gallery, New York, NY, USA | 09/15 ~ 10/17/2016
CHG 10 Year Anniversary Exhibition | Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA | 08/27 ~ 09/24/2016
Brooklyn Public | World Trade Gallery, Manhattan, NY, USA | 10/22 ~ 12/01/2015
Pratt Institute | New York, USA | M.F.A. Digital Arts
Ewha Womans University | Korea | B.F.A. Visual Information Design
Parsons the New School for Design | New York, USA | Exchange Student in Design & Technology
