[K-ART FOCUS] For Ba He-jum, bitcoin and breastfeeding are not so far apart

Korean painter Ba He-jum’s solo exhibition Awakened brought together cryptocurrency charts, breastfeeding, pregnancy and the ocean at MASSIMODECARLO in Mahkjip in Seoul’s Samcheong neighborhood during Seoul Art Week. The show ran from Aug. 29 through Sept. 5 and marked her first solo exhibition in Seoul since joining the gallery’s roster last year. Ba said the work grew out of everyday subway scenes and her interest in abstraction as something alive and moving. She framed the paintings as open-ended images rather than neat metaphors.

The exhibition featured eight new paintings, including Milk of a Bitcoiner-Mother, There Is an Ocean in the Pregnant Belly and I Envy the Mother Conches.

Ba He-jum was born in Seoul in 1987 and studied painting and printmaking at Ewha Womans University and the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart.

She is now based in Seoul and participates in Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar’s practice-based research program.

Her earlier work has been shown at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s 2021 Young Korean Artists exhibition and Frieze Seoul Focus Asia in 2022.

Published Sep 11, 2026 7:07 pm KST

Artist masters finding commonality in seemingly unrelated ideas

Ba He-jum / Courtesy of the artist and MASSIMODECARLO

This is the second in a series spotlighting Korean artists whose distinct creative worlds are coming into focus in the country’s vibrant autumn art season. —ED.

What do cryptocurrency charts, breastfeeding and mother conches have in common?

For Korean painter Ba He-jum, the answer is not merely an unlikely combination. It is an invitation to look again at the abstract forces already shaping everyday life.

In her recent solo exhibition, “Awakened,” Ba brings together the fluctuating lines of crypto markets, the unruly physicality of milk and pregnancy, and the mysteries of ocean. The show, presented by Italian gallery MASSIMODECARLO at Mahkjip, a hanok-based space in Seoul’s Samcheong neighborhood, ran from Aug. 29 through Sept. 5 during Seoul Art Week.

It marked Ba’s first solo exhibition in Seoul since joining the gallery’s roster last year. The show featured eight new paintings, including “Milk of a Bitcoiner-Mother” (2026), “There Is an Ocean in the Pregnant Belly” (2024-2026) and “I Envy the Mother Conches” (2026).

Installation view of Ba He-jum's solo exhibition "Awakened" at Mahkjip in Seoul / Courtesy of Ba He-jum and MASSIMODECARLO

Finding a common theme in unlikely combinations defines her identity as an artist.

Born in Seoul in 1987, Ba studied painting and printmaking at Ewha Womans University and at the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart.

Now based in Seoul and a participant in Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar’s practice-based research program, she has held solo shows at Kumho Museum of Art, SeMA Storage and MASSIMODECARLO Hong Kong. Her works were on display at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's 2021 “Young Korean Artists” exhibition and Frieze Seoul Focus Asia in 2022.

Ba gets pairing ideas in the ordinary.

The idea for "Awakened," for example, was born in the Seoul subway.

One evening, during a sharp rise in bitcoin prices, Ba noticed nearly everyone around her looking at cryptocurrency charts on their phones on their way home from work at Gangnam Station. The image lingered.

“I was not interested in that field at all,” she said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at the exhibition. “But everyone was looking at the app, moving their hands and looking at colored lines pointing to different time zones. Those lines keep moving, and values produced around the world make those lines.”

To Ba, the sight was striking because it made abstraction feel less distant from life.

“People often think of abstraction as something separated from everyday life,” she said. “But the abstraction I was looking for was something alive, moving, beating — not always beautiful, but containing some of life’s bitterness.”

A second subway encounter deepened the idea. Passing through Daechi Station, a pregnant Ba heard a group of parents discussing private academies and their children’s education before their conversation turned to cryptocurrency. The moment upended the fixed images she had held of both crypto investors and mothers.

“Motherhood can have different indicators depending on the era,” she said. “I realized cryptocurrency could also become one such indicator.”

So Ba used them as materials for painting. In “Milk of a Bitcoiner-Mother,” she imagined a person who both invests in bitcoin and breastfeeds — a figure who could be herself, but also anyone else. The work draws a visual connection between downward-moving market graphs and milk that flows down the body.

Ba He-jum's "Milk of a Bitcoiner-Mother" (2026) installed at her solo exhibition "Awakened" at Mahkjip in Seoul / Courtesy of Ba He-jum and MASSIMODECARLO

“Milk comes out of the body and runs down it, creating lines,” she said. “A bitcoin chart can also keep falling. We pursue virtual values on one hand, but on the other, we always live with bodily realities we cannot resist — sweat, milk, the body breaking down.”

The comparison is not intended as a neat metaphor. Ba is more interested in holding unlikely conditions together: market volatility and physical vulnerability, digital desire and the labor of care.

For Ba, a falling line can also be an ascending one, depending on where the viewer stands.

“No matter how much I paint a descent, if someone looks at it from below, it becomes an ascent,” she said. “Once something becomes a painting, it stops. But the ways of reading it remain open.”

The ocean provides another thread across the exhibition. During her pregnancy, Ba found biological description and medical indicator useful but insufficient to make the experience fully comprehensible. So she began imagining every pregnant person as carrying an ocean inside.

Ba He-jum's "There Is an Ocean in the Pregnant Belly" (2024-2026) / Courtesy of Ba He-jum and MASSIMODECARLO

“It was mysterious,” she said. “There were all these indicators through different devices, but they could not tell me 100 percent of the truth. I imagined there was a grand ocean inside every pregnant belly,” — a concrete image that felt primordial, profound and teeming with life, she explained.

That image linked her earlier images of cryptocurrency — a digital realm she associated with both danger and seduction — to the unseen depths of the sea.

In “I Envy the Mother Conches,” Ba turns to the shells of conches, which carry both protective hardness and environmental traces. She was drawn to the fact that conches pass on genetic instructions enabling their young to build shells of their own for self-protection.

Ba does not expect viewers to decode every reference in her painting. She sees openness, rather than instant readability, as one of abstraction’s strength.

“Leaving things open is one of the virtues abstraction gives us,” she said.

韩国画家巴熙珠（Ba He-jum）的个展“觉醒”（Awakened）在首尔艺术周期间于首尔三清洞麻糬街的MASSIMODECARLO画廊举办。展览融合了加密货币图表、母乳喂养、怀孕和海洋等元素。展览从8月29日至9月5日举行，是巴熙珠自去年加入该画廊以来在首尔举办的首个个展。巴熙珠表示，作品的灵感源于日常地铁场景以及她对抽象艺术的浓厚兴趣，她认为抽象艺术应该充满活力和动感。她将画作构图为开放式的图像，而非泾渭分明的隐喻。

展览展出了八幅新画作，包括《比特币母亲的乳汁》、《孕妇的肚子里有一片海洋》和《我羡慕母海螺》。

Ba He-jum 1987 年出生于首尔，曾在梨花女子大学和斯图加特国立艺术设计学院学习绘画和版画。

她目前居住在首尔，并参与魏玛包豪斯大学的实践研究项目。

她早期的作品曾在2021年韩国国立现代美术馆举办的“韩国青年艺术家展”和2022年Frieze Seoul Focus Asia上展出。

发布于2026年9月11日晚上7:07（韩国标准时间）

艺术家大师们在看似无关的想法中发现共通之处

巴和柱 / 图片由艺术家及 MASSIMODECARLO 提供

这是聚焦韩国艺术家的系列报道之二，这些艺术家们独特的创作世界正随着韩国充满活力的秋季艺术季而逐渐为人所知。——编者注

加密货币图表、母乳喂养和母海螺有什么共同之处？

对于韩国画家巴熙柱而言，答案并非仅仅是一种看似不可能的组合，更是一种重新审视那些早已塑造日常生活的抽象力量的邀请。

在近期举办的个展“觉醒”（Awakened）中，Ba 将加密货币市场的波动、乳汁和孕期的复杂生理状态以及海洋的神秘感融合在一起。此次展览由意大利 MASSIMODECARLO 画廊在首尔三清洞的韩屋空间 Mahkjip 举办，于 8 月 29 日至 9 月 5 日首尔艺术周期间展出。

这是Ba自去年加入该画廊以来在首尔举办的首次个展。展览展出了八幅新作，包括《比特币母亲的乳汁》（2026）、《孕肚中有一片海洋》（2024-2026）和《我羡慕母海螺》（2026）。

巴熙珠个展“觉醒”在首尔Mahkjip画廊的展览现场 / 图片由巴熙珠和MASSIMODECARLO提供

在看似不可能的组合中发现共同主题，定义了她作为艺术家的身份。

巴于 1987 年出生于首尔，曾在梨花女子大学和斯图加特国立艺术设计学院学习绘画和版画。

她现居首尔，是魏玛包豪斯大学实践研究项目的参与者，曾在锦湖美术馆、首尔国际现代美术馆（SeMA Storage）和香港MASSIMODECARLO画廊举办个展。她的作品曾于2021年在韩国国立现代美术馆举办的“韩国青年艺术家”展和2022年在首尔弗里兹亚洲艺术博览会展出。

Ba在平凡中就能获得搭配灵感。

例如，《觉醒》这首歌的创作灵感就诞生于首尔地铁。

一天晚上，比特币价格飙升之际，Ba注意到，在江南站下班回家的路上，几乎每个人都在用手机查看加密货币图表。这一幕让她久久难忘。

“我对那个领域一点兴趣都没有，”她在最近接受《韩国时报》采访时说道。“但每个人都在看那个应用程序，挥动着手指，看着指向不同时区的彩色线条。这些线条一直在移动，世界各地产生的价值就构成了这些线条。”

对巴来说，这种景象令人震撼，因为它让抽象与生活之间的距离感减轻了。

“人们常常认为抽象艺术与日常生活截然不同，”她说。“但我一直在寻找的抽象艺术却是鲜活的、流动的、跳动的——它并不总是美丽的，但却蕴含着生活的苦涩。”

第二次地铁偶遇加深了她的想法。怀孕的巴女士途经大峙站时，听到一群家长在讨论私立学校和孩子的教育问题，随后话题转到了加密货币上。这一幕颠覆了她对加密货币投资者和母亲这两个角色的固有印象。

“母性在不同时代会有不同的表现形式，”她说。“我意识到加密货币也可能成为其中一种表现形式。”

于是，Ba 将它们用作绘画材料。在作品《比特币母亲的乳汁》中，她想象了一个既投资比特币又哺乳的人——这个人物可以是她自己，也可以是任何人。这件作品在视觉上将下跌的市场图表与流淌在身体上的乳汁联系起来。

Ba He-jum 的作品《比特币母亲的乳汁》（2026）在首尔 Mahkjip 画廊举办的 Ba He-jum 个展“觉醒”中展出 / 图片由 Ba He-jum 和 MASSIMODECARLO 提供

“乳汁从身体流出，顺着身体流淌，留下痕迹，”她说。“比特币的价格走势图也会持续下跌。一方面，我们追求虚拟价值；另一方面，我们始终要面对无法抗拒的生理现实——汗水、乳汁、身体的衰老。”

这种比较并非意在提供一个简洁的比喻。Ba更感兴趣的是将看似不可能的条件联系起来：市场波动与人身脆弱、数字化需求与照护劳动。

对于巴来说，下降的线也可以是上升的线，这取决于观察者所处的位置。

“无论我画的是什么下坡的场景，如果有人从下方观看，它就变成了上坡，”她说。“一旦作品变成一幅画，它就停止了。但解读它的方式却依然开放。”

海洋是贯穿整个展览的另一条线索。在怀孕期间，巴女士发现生物学描述和医学指标虽然有用，但不足以让她完全理解怀孕的体验。于是，她开始想象每个孕妇的体内都孕育着一片海洋。

巴和柱作品《孕肚中有一片海洋》（2024-2026）/ 图片由巴和柱及MASSIMODECARLO提供

“这很神秘，”她说。“通过各种设备都能得到各种指标，但它们都无法告诉我百分之百的真相。我想象着每个孕妇的肚子里都有一片浩瀚的海洋，”她解释说——这是一个具体的意象，感觉原始、深刻且充满生命力。

那幅画面将她之前对加密货币的印象——她将加密货币视为一个既危险又充满诱惑的数字领域——与未知的深海联系起来。

在《我羡慕母海螺》一画中，巴将目光投向了海螺的贝壳，这些贝壳既坚硬又具有保护作用，同时也承载着环境的痕迹。她被海螺能够将遗传信息传递给幼螺这一事实所吸引，因为幼螺能够建造自己的贝壳来保护自己。

巴并不期望观者解读她画作中的每一个典故。她认为，开放性而非即时可读性，才是抽象艺术的优势之一。

“保持开放性是抽象赋予我们的优点之一，”她说。