There are artists whose works impress you immediately through scale. And then there are artists whose presence stays with you because of how quietly sincere they are.
Meeting Korean artist Jeon Byeong Sam was one of those rare moments. Despite being internationally known for his monumental installations and highly complex processes, he was unpretentious, grounded and deeply thoughtful.
Walking around the gallery at the Capitol Building with him, I felt genuinely honoured. Jeon generously gave me a personal tour of InterFace, sharing insights not only about this exhibition, but also about how his practice has evolved over the past decade. Hearing him speak about repetition, identity and society added an emotional dimension to the work that no artist statement could ever fully capture.
Presented as part of Singapore Art Week 2026, InterFace was a special invitation by the National Arts Council, something Jeon shared he felt deeply humbled and honoured by. It marks a meaningful return to Singapore for the artist, following his previous solo exhibition Fold & Unfold at The Columns Gallery in 2021.
Faces Folded Into Contemporary Life
InterFace brings together Jeon’s most recent photo sculptural works, portraits printed, folded and layered into dense sculptural forms that resist immediate recognition. At first glance, the objects appear rhythmic and abstract. Jeon also pointed out that many of the works are anchored by his three favourite colours, red, blue and yellow. Bold yet elemental, these hues recur throughout the exhibition like a visual foundation, almost as if he is reducing the complexity of contemporary identity into its most essential building blocks. If you spend more time with them and you begin to realise you are looking at faces, not as fixed identities, but as fragments within a collective field.
For this exhibition, Jeon worked with 30 portraits from around the world, including 10 Singaporeans, weaving together a study of global diversity through individual presence. Contributors span different ages, professions, nationalities and backgrounds, and some portraits were generated with the assistance of AI. This merging of the real and the virtual makes the works feel especially resonant today, when identity is constantly shaped by both physical and digital worlds.
A Reflection of Singapore’s Multiracial Tapestry
What struck me most was how naturally this exhibition speaks to Singapore. As a multiracial society built on intersecting histories and communities, we live daily within layers of difference and belonging. Jeon’s folded portraits feel like a visual metaphor for this, individual lives blending into shared patterns, uniqueness held within collectivity.
Among the repeated faces, I found myself spotting familiar Singapore presences. There was Sam Lay, from the National Arts Council, and also Mark Lee, the beloved Singapore actor and comedian, both included as part of Jeon’s circle of friends and participants. Seeing recognisable local faces dissolve into hundreds of folded fragments made me reflect on how identity is never singular, but always shaped in relation to others.
Labour, Memory and the Art of Repetition
Jeon’s process is physically intense and almost meditative. Portraits are printed, then hand folded, stacked and arranged into compositions that pulse between figuration and abstraction. Each work is labour dense, built from hundreds of repeated photocopies, where repetition becomes both structure and message.
Jeon is widely known for his monumental installations in Korea, including his ambitious CD project that transformed an abandoned factory site through hundreds of thousands of collected discs. Yet here at Capitol Singapore, the scale becomes intimate, inviting viewers to slow down and look closer.
The works do not tell you what to see. Instead, they ask you to feel your way through them, to let repetition and disappearance open up deeper questions about individuality, diversity and what binds us together.
Jeon Byeong Sam: InterFace runs from 22 January to 22 February 2026 at Capitol Singapore. Through its folded forms and layered identities, it reminds us that even when faces dissolve into abstraction, what remains is presence, connection and the shared trace of humanity.
