Kim Bora, Director, Seongbuk Museum of Art

“Alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

It was sometime in the spring of last year, I believe, that I first encountered Huh Yun-hee’s sunrise paintings—an encounter that felt almost destined, as if guided by the laws of nature. For those familiar with her earlier works, the dramatic shift in style came as a surprise, requiring a moment to reorient and take it all in.

Huh began her sunrise series in October 2023, after moving to Jeju Island. After a full cycle of autumn, winter, and spring during which the sun rose again and again, we came upon these works for the first time. The exhibition space then was alive with energy and wonder, infused with the artist’s unfiltered gestures.

In an era where ecological concerns can no longer be ignored, the opportunity to witness such an earnest ode to the sunrise feels especially rare and meaningful. Without hesitation, we began preparing this exhibition, moved by the desire to share the sense of being cradled by nature. After another summer, autumn, winter, and spring, we now welcome the summer of 2025 and the opening of this exhibition.

In Eternity Within A Moment: Huh Yun-hee, the exhibition at the Seongbuk Museum of Art, the full spectrum of her sunrise works—painted day after day since the project began—unfolds across the gallery space.

Each morning before first light, the artist steps out to the same spot overlooking the sea and mountains. There, in the thick darkness, she prepares to paint. It is a moment of quiet attunement, almost a sunrise ritual—an act of silent prayer offered to nature. As dawn breaks, the light inspires her to create a spontaneous narrative. Her hands move faster with each shift in brightness, and the rising sun, too, seems to accelerate, almost slipping away. What might seem a calm, repetitive process, in fact, is filled with urgency and unpredictability, eventually taking form on the canvas, shaped by unexpected busyness and unpredictable anticipation. No moment repeats itself. The hues of clouds and atmosphere are never still. As the canvas embraces every fleeting moment, time itself is no longer there.

Leonardo da Vinci’s words come back to me: once you’ve tasted the sky, you’ll forever be drawn to it. Nature is this fluid, this immediate. Nature is this ever-changing and alert. Thus, Huh Yun-hee’s sunrise works—capturing the raw and fleeting essence of nature—have now found their place in our exhibition hall.

“Art expresses the essence of such moments, drawing nature’s crop out of time. It manifests this from its pure being, its eternal life.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1755–1854)

Huh’s work is an embodiment of nature’s vitality in full bloom through art. With her enduring commitment to art and nature in mind, the Sunrise Diary reveals itself as a variation that feels entirely justified.

At some point, we began to lose touch with the subtle changes in the natural world. Most people have never truly felt the way the sun rises differently each day—in size, in color, in the curve of its ascent. We may know it in theory, but we no longer experience it. Much like the way we overlook the worth of a single individual within grand narratives, we’ve lost sight of the delicate presence of nature in the structure of daily life.

This exhibition invites us to rediscover that quiet sensitivity—something our times are steadily forgetting. Huh Yun-hee is willing to share how we might draw closer to nature, through which we may come to reflect on the relationship between humanity and nature, and perhaps arrive at more fundamental questions about our place within it.

Now begins our encounter with nature—imbued with the breadth of the artist. And through the presence of those who resonate with these works, the light and beauty of their spirit may reach—if only for a moment—toward eternity.