Gefen Gallery

Seo Young Doek (born 1983, South Korea) creates sculptural figures that exist in a charged tension between fullness and emptiness, blending Eastern philosophy with Western classical traditions. His hollow forms evoke Zen ideas of breath, stillness, and spiritual liberation, while their intense, anatomically precise poses reference ancient Greek sculpture and ideals of physical clarity. Constructed from iron chains, the bodies appear both fortified and imprisoned, symbolizing enduring beauty alongside humanity’s gradual inner erosion in an increasingly inhuman world. Through this contrast of strength and vulnerability, Seo’s work ultimately conveys a quiet resilience, suggesting the possibility of continued existence sustained by inner spirit rather than material mass.