Alveolus

Hwaran Cho’s 《Alveolus series》 explores the structure and rhythm of breathing through painting. Taking this basic, life-sustaining activity as its starting point, the work examines exchanges between inside and outside, the gathering and spreading of forms, and the formation and dissolution of boundaries. Cho brings her understanding of materials from Korean painting to watercolour paper and cotton canvas, making the invisible movements of life visible through the interaction of water, pigment, and the surface beneath them.

An alveolus is a small air sac in the lungs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged. The rounded forms and branching lines in her paintings recall the connected structures of the alveoli while also retaining the appearance of grapes as a still-life subject. This allows the images to move between representation and abstraction. The tones and edges created as paint spreads or gathers suggest the flow of breath, while individual forms connect with and separate from one another.

The work develops through four perspectives: “inhalation,” “exhalation,” “multiple frames,” and “a single frame.” Inhalation and exhalation relate to processes of receiving and releasing, gathering and spreading. The multiple frames explore relationships between the individual, the surrounding environment, and different identities, creating a structure in which separate areas support one another’s boundaries. Within a single frame, these relationships are brought together in one pictorial space. Paint spreading outwards from the centre loosens fixed boundaries and creates a space where inside and outside meet.

The amount of water, the concentration of pigment, temperature, humidity, and drying time all play a part in shaping the paintings. In Leipzig in 2024, Cho established the work’s basic visual language by exploring how black paint spread and gathered within a square frame. In Belvès in 2025, layers of colour that emerged through slow drying, together with visible brushstrokes in the pale background, brought depth to the paintings. In Berlin in the summer of 2026, experiments with different drying conditions accompanied an exploration of new compositions, with combinations of forms suggesting natural landscapes or the human body.

The relationship between black and misaek shapes the work’s use of colour. Misaek is a Korean term for a soft, rice-coloured off-white. Black reveals the density and movement of the forms, while misaek creates subtle differences in colour and a sense of depth between the forms and the background. Rooted in the natural colours of hanji, traditional Korean paper, and cotton canvas, misaek also connects to Cho’s experience of mixing colours found in nature to create skin tones in traditional painting. The surface contributes its own colour and the texture of its fibres, revealing the spread of pigment and the traces of the brush.

The works on paper and the oil paintings hold time in different ways. In the watercolours, the movement and drying of water and pigment are recorded directly on the paper. In the oil paintings based on these works, Cho repeatedly applies thin layers with a dry brush on cotton canvas, recreating the spreading effects and transparent layers through a different material. As an image first formed in watercolour takes shape again through repeated brushwork in oil, the two media connect the recording of a moment with a sustained process of looking.

Beginning with a tiny structure inside the body, Alveolus broadens the meaning of breath to explore relationships between the individual, the environment, and living things. Variations within repeated forms and the movement of materials reveal the flow and connectedness of life. Cho’s paintings invite us to notice and reflect on the breathing we repeat every day, exploring the exchanges and balance that sustain life.

© Hwaran Cho