Gallery Apple (2F, 399 Yeonbuk-ro, Jeju-si) is currently presenting Oh Seung-ik’s solo exhibition, At That Place, Hallasan, which opened on November 16 and runs through November 23.

For more than twenty years, Oh has projected both Jeju’s history and the story of his own life onto Hallasan—a mountain that, for him, embodies the island’s collective pain, turmoil, and eventual healing. His artistic world has evolved into what he calls the “Red Hallasan,” a realm shaped by confronting the trauma of the April 3rd Incident and by incorporating symbolic elements of Jeju’s landscape—grave sites, stone mounds, and lone pine trees.

This exhibition pays homage to those who rooted their lives in Jeju and worked tirelessly for its future.

At its center stands the figure of “the Bengchani uncle,” through whom Oh gives sculptural form to the endurance, sacrifice, and communal spirit of Jeju’s people.

Reflecting on the exhibition, Oh explains, “As I searched for Jeju’s identity through Hallasan, I became acutely aware of the countless individuals who lived for this island. Even if my works are imperfect, I wanted to honour them with sincere respect and gratitude.”

Ultimately, the exhibition reveals a new dimension of the artist’s practice—one that binds the past, present, and future through the enduring presence of Hallasan.

The subject of my work is the trace of Hallasan—the trace of Jeju people, and the lingering marks of both the pain and the hope tied to the mid-mountain villages scarred by the April 3rd Incident. For many years, I have steadfastly painted this Hallasan, which has silently guarded me, offering comfort and healing. The mountain stands where villages once were, and where graves now remain. At that place, Hallasan, I express the emotions that rise sincerely from within.

Every person carries visible or invisible traces shaped by life’s internal and external experiences, though the depth and weight of those traces differ.

I began depicting Hallasan’s traces in my mid-forties. For Jeju people, the wounds of 4·3 remain deeply embedded, and stories of the event invariably return to Hallasan. Within my own family and relatives, the trauma of 4·3 persists, and they, too, spoke of Hallasan as a silent witness. The mountain holds the layered history of Jeju; it is a presence both sacred and familiar, one that has long stood to observe our memories, hopes, affections, and sorrows.

From this mountain, I have felt solace, gratitude, and perhaps even a sense of responsibility—to carry its stories forward. Hallasan, seen from the places where pain and trace still linger, became the vessel through which I express my own marks. In this exhibition, 

At That Place, Hallasan, works such as The Road to Hallasan, Memory of That Day, 7 a.m. in May, and 6 p.m. in October capture this journey.

My painterly approach uses the Gao Yuan perspective, filling the entire picture plane with the mass of Hallasan. Rather than pursuing beauty, I sought a resonant visual weight, rendering the Red Hallasan through sculptural density.

It is neither easy nor simple to paint only Hallasan. To portray Jeju’s beauty and the mountain’s mystique alone would be a vast undertaking—yet I continue to insist on depicting Hallasan in its entirety. This stubbornness has become my task, challenge, and experiment.

Seen from the mid-mountain regions—places where vanished villages remain as the island’s most painful traces—Hallasan becomes even more charged. I searched for compositions that could hold Jeju’s lived experiences and the mountain’s meaning for its people.

In this, I found parallels with Jeong Seon’s Inwangsan after Rain from the Joseon period. Like true jingyeong landscape painting, I fill the canvas not through atmospheric perspective but through the Gao Yuan technique.

 And in these landscapes, there is always an unnamed grave and a solitary tree—standing silently, unchanged, just as it did on that day.

The exhibition At That Place, Hallasan expresses the lingering wounds of my mother and relatives—traumas rooted in the April 3rd Incident—through the Red Hallasan, a sixty-year-old pine tree, and graves whose names are lost to time. 

Perhaps, in doing so, I am attempting to record pain, healing, and recovery as a single, enduring trace.