Heejae Hong

Heejae Hong is a Korean contemporary artist whose work centers on the ideas of success, prosperity, abundance, and aspiration. Through vibrant cityscapes, symbolic imagery, and elements drawn from Korean culture, she creates paintings that express both her personal connection to the city and her hope that those who live within it can pursue and achieve their dreams.

Having grown up in a Korean metropolitan environment, Hong developed a deep sense of comfort and nostalgia for urban life. While many people may associate nostalgia with the countryside or nature, Hong finds it in the movement, architecture, streets, and energy of the city. In her work, she brings this personal nostalgia into contemporary cityscapes while incorporating symbols rooted in Korean tradition.

Magnolias appear in her paintings as symbols of abundance and prosperity, while peonies represent grace, nobility, and a flourishing life. Korean porcelain serves as a symbolic vessel, gathering and holding positive energy, blessings, good fortune, and prosperity. By placing these traditional Korean symbols within modern urban settings, Hong brings wishes for happiness, abundance, and good fortune into the everyday life of the contemporary city.

One of the most distinctive elements in Hong’s work is the upward vertical line, which she refers to as the “Success Line.” Rising through her compositions, these lines symbolize advancement, achievement, ambition, and the determination to continue moving upward. They reflect Hong’s wish for New Yorkers, and for everyone pursuing a life within the city, to fulfill their own dreams and aspirations.

The city in Hong’s paintings is therefore more than a setting, it becomes a place of possibility. Her cityscapes bring together the energy and ambition of modern urban life with traditional Korean symbols of prosperity and good fortune. Through flowers, porcelain, upward lines, and vibrant metropolitan imagery, Hong creates a visual language of encouragement, one that celebrates moving forward, achieving success, and living a life of abundance.

Her work ultimately connects past and present, Korean tradition and contemporary city life, personal nostalgia and future aspiration. Each painting carries not only memories of the city she knows, but also a wish for the people who inhabit it: to rise, prosper, and achieve the dreams they carry with them.

Hong received her MFA in Painting from the Graduate School of Fine Arts at Hongik University. Over the course of her career, she has presented numerous solo exhibitions and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions in Korea and internationally. Her artistic and cultural contributions have received notable recognition, including the 2025 Peace Culture Award and the 2026 Seoul Metropolitan Government Mayor’s Award.