Memory landscapes: Close-up of Seonna Hong (b. 1973) Atacama I, 2024, acrylic and oil pastel on raw canvas, 60 x 75 in. Courtesy of the artist and Hashimoto Contemporary.
Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art Announces ‘Past Lives’ by Seonna Hong
An art exhibition that illuminates discovery and destiny through memory-infused landscapes, ancestral Korean heritage, and shifting environmental concerns
On February 12, 2025, Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (SMCMoA) is opening Past Lives, a solo exhibition featuring 32 paintings and repurposed mixed-media work by artist Seonna Hong. Showcasing work created over 15 years, Past Lives explores landscapes, the figure, and repurposed materials as a vessel for magical thinking.
The museum will host an artist talk with Seonna Hong and Dasha Matsuura on Wednesday, February 12, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. This event will occur at the Soda Activity Center on the Saint Mary’s College campus. The next day, Thursday, February 13, there will be an opening celebration from 5 to 7 p.m. Opening remarks will be delivered in the museum courtyard. Both events are free and open to the public. Past Lives will be on view through June 22, 2025.
Hong (b. 1973) is a Los Angeles-based artist who explores memory and narrative through her art practice. In the exhibition Past Lives, Hong weaves stories and symbols from one lived experience to another, reflecting on past life chapters and threading meaning through memory, fate, and ancestral heritage. For Hong, painting constitutes a reflective journal—an art form that lets her look back and see invariable, distinct chapters with a discernible trajectory. In these times of reflection, Hong often feels like these memories represent a different life.
The exhibition title, borrowed from the 2023 film, examines identity-defining memories and how threads of fate expand and connect through reflection and imposed narratives. Hong explains, “There is an undeniable romanticism tied to longing, a connection to a time and place and all of its roots, but it is through choosing to live in the present moment that true love shows itself, because it is here that all the layers are seen.”
Hong often repurposes materials in her art practice while also portraying places that speak to environmental uncertainties caused by humans and their position within the landscape. Her new works, Atacama I and Atacama II, place the viewer in the driest non-polar desert in the world—a location that is culturally praised as a tourist destination for stargazing. Here, Hong chooses to depict her figures moving amongst dunes of discarded fabric waste, which draws attention to the environmental concerns of the fast fashion industry and its impact on the landscape. By choosing to ground her memory landscapes into known places of environmental uncertainties, Hong connects Past Lives to the future, enabling time to be unwoven in various directions.
Several works in the exhibition tether Hong to her ancestral Korean heritage. Bears and tigers act as emblems in her work, connecting personal totems to traditional origin tales. Following the upsurge of 2020’s anti-Asian violence, Hong’s embracement of traditional clothing, such as hanboks, acts as cultural pride. In the exhibition, two hanboks sewed from recycled denim and other fabric are positioned on a neolttwigi, an acrobatic Korean game bearing a resemblance to a seesaw. The placement of the hanboks on the neolttwigi captures a sense of play and pride, bringing together the multiple dimensions of interlaced Western and Eastern heritage.
Some paintings will appear in versions yet to be seen by the public. Hong shares, “In [this] body of work, I have included pieces that show my past lives as well as older works that, in the spirit of re-use, repurpose, and upcycling, have been painted into and brought from the past into the present, being mindful to not just gesso over the canvas (a literal and metaphorical whitewash), but include some of its history, the layers.”
Past Lives will be accompanied by free public programs throughout the spring semester. Tiger and Persimmon Book Club, a recurring reading group celebrating books and films by Asian women creators, will occur on February 19, March 5, March 19, April 16, and April 30 at 3 p.m. Ensemble Assemblage, featuring student-curated music and dance in the galleries, will occur on March 8, April 11 and May 3 at 3 p.m. On March 8, join us for an art crawl at 11 a.m. Past Lives is curated by Britt Royer and presented in collaboration with Hashimoto Contemporary. Also on view is the exhibition Isole: A Voyage Among My Dreams, which features assemblage work by Cianne Fragione.
ǿմý Seonna Hong
Seonna Hong (b. 1973) was born and raised in Southern California. She graduated with a BA in Art from Cal State University Long Beach and continued to hone her craft, teaching art to children for several years. Her paintings are quietly narrative and often autobiographical, no doubt influenced by her time teaching and her work in TV and Feature Animation. In 2004, she received an Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Production Design for her work on My Life as a Teenage Robot. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. Her illustrated book, Animus, is in its third printing, and according to Ken Johnson (The New York Times), “the paintings are beautifully made, and the imagery is mysteriously touching.” Hong continues to show her work in shows and galleries worldwide and is represented by Hashimoto Contemporary.
ǿմý Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art
Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art (SMCMoA) is a landmark for art in Northern California, with a permanent collection of over 5,000 objects. Inspired by its founder, Brother Cornelius Braeg, the museum cares for the nation’s most comprehensive collection of William Keith paintings. The museum offers educational and programming opportunities with rotating exhibitions twice a year for the College and the surrounding community. SMCMoA is located across the street from the Soda Activity Center at ǿմý in Moraga, California. Programs and admission are free for all. Public tours begin on Saturday, February 22 and will be offered Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and Saturdays at 2 p.m. Please contact Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art at (925) 631-4379 or email museum@stmarys-ca.edu for further details. More information can be found at stmarys-ca.edu/museum or by following us on social media .
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At ǿմý, we inspire minds, engage with the world, and create opportunities for students to find their lives transformed. With small class sizes and professors who know you by name, the Saint Mary’s experience empowers students to thrive—whether you’re an undergraduate or a professional looking for the next step in your career. Founded in 1863, the University is proud of our Lasallian heritage and how it fuels teaching and learning in an inclusive and wonderfully diverse community. More than 3,600 Gaels study on our Bay Area campus nestled in the rolling hills of Moraga, just 23 miles east of San Francisco. US News and World Report puts SMC among the top five regional universities in the West. You’ll also find Saint Mary’s highlighted in the guide Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think ǿմý Colleges—the only Catholic college and the only university in California to make the list.
