BIOGRAPHY
SuYeon Seo (b. 1983, Busan, South Korea) is a Korean abstract painter based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Her practice explores the relationship between nature, memory, and the passage of time, with a particular interest in the traces left by things that have disappeared.
Moving from South Korea to Sweden has influenced both the themes of her work and the way she perceives the world around her. Living between two cultures has deepened her awareness of place, absence, and the subtle changes that occur over time. Much of her inspiration comes from the natural surroundings of Sweden, where the changing light, the atmosphere of each season, and the colours and forms of plants she loves become starting points for her paintings. Drawing on fleeting impressions of light, wind, flowers, and the changing seasons, Seo creates paintings that move between memories of the natural world and abstraction.
Rather than depicting specific landscapes, she works through layers of colour and texture, distorting forms and allowing fragments of memory and emotion to emerge on the canvas. Her paintings offer an open space for viewers to encounter their own experiences and interpretations.
Seo attended an arts high school in South Korea before studying Visual Communication Design at university. After working as a freelance designer for nearly two decades, she returned to her long-held passion for painting in 2023. Her background in design shaped her understanding of colour, composition, and visual balance, while painting offered a different kind of freedom, allowing her to move beyond predetermined structures and explore intuition, spontaneity, and the unexpected. As a self-taught painter, she continues to develop her own visual language through experimentation with colour, form, and texture. This transition has become an important part of her artistic development, as she continues to discover new possibilities through the process of painting itself.
Music also plays a quiet but essential role in her creative process. Melodies fill her studio, bringing rhythm to her gestures and sometimes subtly influencing the colours and atmosphere of her paintings.
Alongside her painting practice, she has also worked in public art, including her participation in Planksidan, the largest public art programme associated with Gothenburg's Västlänken railway project. Her mural remains part of Gothenburg's urban landscape. Her works are held in private collections in Sweden, South Korea, Germany, and Denmark. Her large-scale painting Fragments of a Winter Woods (2025–2026) was also featured in the Korean drama My Bias, My Boss (tvN).
Having independently presented her work across Northern Europe, Seo has continued to develop her distinctive approach to painting. In 2026, she made her art fair debut at Affordable Art Fair Stockholm, where she was selected for the Fresh at the Fair programme, marking a new phase in her engagement with the European contemporary art scene.
Explore the music that accompanies her creative process through her Spotify playlist, linked below.
