Ken Gun Min, ‘Strange Days of a Quiet Sun’, LA exhibition review

ken gun min 2026 exhibition, Strange Days of a Quiet Sun — Left, artist Ken Gun Min in his studio. Right, *Tiger as Saint Sebastian*, 2026

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Nazarian / Curcio. Photo by Ed Mumford.)

Back in 2023, Wallpaper* singled out the vibrant, intricately detailed and strikingly unique work of Korean-born, Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gun Min, naming him one to watch. Two years on, that prediction has proved prescient: exhibitions are selling out, major galleries are borrowing works from Nazarian/Curcio – his representing gallery – and Min is launching his third solo presentation there. ‘Strange Days of a Quiet Sun’ opens on 21 February 2026 and runs until 28 March at the LA gallery.

The exhibition introduces a new body of paintings alongside a monumental, double-sided folding screen, extending Min’s distinctive visual language of swirling colour, dense compositions and highly ornamented surfaces. Embroidery, beading and hand-applied materials enrich his canvases. Yet alongside this maximalism, Min sharpens his symbolic focus. Lush botanical settings function as immersive stages in which human figures, animals and emblems converge. Motifs of the sun, the tree, the animal and the body recur, distilling historical, political and emotional tensions.

The exhibition’s title borrows from astronomy, where a ‘quiet sun’ denotes a cyclical period of diminished solar activity. Min reimagines the term as a metaphor for sadness and estrangement. In one painting, a blackened sun – adorned with onyx stones and black lace – hangs within a turbulent, saturated landscape. This oscillation between seduction and threat becomes a defining theme of the exhibition.

It is felt in Min’s folding screen, composed of eight individually hand-painted, embroidered and beaded canvases, drawing on the traditions of Japanese byōbu and Korean byeongpung. One side unfolds into a kaleidoscopic landscape in saturated colour; the reverse offers a subdued, near-monochromatic image of a tree.

Animal imagery plays a pivotal role in Min’s practice, often evoking pursuit, sacrifice, endurance and transformation. Since 2019, he has returned repeatedly to the tiger, invoking the Korean tiger, a potent symbol in folklore and nationalist iconography. In Tiger as Saint Sebastian, the animal’s staging recalls the religious drama of Peter Paul Rubens, inverting and reworking Western art-historical convention. Throughout ‘Strange Days of a Quiet Sun’, Min fuses references from Western and Eastern art histories more broadly, European hunting scenes colliding with East Asian landscape traditions.

Queer narratives are equally central. Min’s treatment of the male nude within dense, overgrown landscapes positions figures as partially concealed, casting the viewer in the role of voyeur. In one painting, a nude figure is violently embraced by a bear, its claws drawn, blood rendered in shimmering red beads. The image hovers between intimacy and brutality, underscoring the precarious entanglement of pleasure and threat.

Political histories surface intermittently yet insistently. Works such as Beyond the Struggle Narrative (Okinawa) reference the enduring presence of US military bases abroad. In Secret Map of Camp Garrison, Yongsan and 7 Flavors of Magic Candy Tree, branches incorporate stitched imagery, beadwork, pigment and hand-drawn maps based on Min’s visits to Camp Garrison in Seoul in 1997, when it housed a major US military base.

Across the exhibition, botanical abundance becomes the connective tissue binding intimacy and aggression, history and fantasy, beauty and violence. Far from idyllic, these lush environments operate as charged terrains for dense symbolism. Through his elaborate visual language, Min carves out a decisive and unmistakable place within the contemporary art landscape.

'Strange Days of a Quiet Sun' , 21 February-28 March at Nazarian/Curcio, 616 N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles

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Anna Solomon is Wallpaper’s digital staff writer, working across all of Wallpaper.com’s core pillars. She has a special interest in interiors and curates the weekly spotlight series, The Inside Story. Before joining the team at the start of 2025, she was senior editor at Luxury London Magazine and Luxurylondon.co.uk, where she covered all things lifestyle.