Sim Smith is delighted to present Still Here, the first exhibition at the gallery by Korean-born, Los Angeles–based painter Sung Jik Yang, opening alongside Dido Hallett's exhibition Rumble. Please join us for an opening celebration and a special conversation between Dido Hallett and Paul Hedge, co-founder of Halles Gallery on Thursday, 9th April, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Sim Smith, 6 Camberwell Passage, London SE5 0AX.
The exhibition brings together Yang’s compelling portraits and still lives, positioning both as intimate and emotionally resonant records of lived experience among those closest to the artist—family, friends, and the domestic spaces they inhabit. Rather than functioning as symbolic interludes, the flowers, vessels, soil, and garden fragments that recur throughout the exhibition are treated with the same attentiveness as his sitters. Like the figures, they are not constructed as narratives or metaphors but encountered simply as presences. In this way, Still Here proposes portraiture as an expanded field—one that includes not only the human face, but also the fragile, sustaining material world that surrounds it.
“Like the figures, they are not treated as symbols or narratives, but simply as presences”
Renowned for his psychologically nuanced and emotionally direct approach to figurative painting, Yang draws inspiration from encounters with individuals he meets in everyday life—many of whom reflect the layered cultural identities that shape cities like Los Angeles. Each portrait emerges from moments of connection and observation, translating fleeting interactions into layered visual studies of modern identity. His subjects—often depicted in quiet, contemplative states—suggest introspection and invite viewers to directly replace the artist, seeing Yang’s subject from the exact position that he occupied in the scene.
“I am drawn to states of imperfection and unguardedness rather than idealized representation. Natural hair, faces at rest, fading gardens, and soil marked by trial-and-error resist polish or spectacle. In these conditions, painting becomes a way of remaining with fragility without exaggeration”.
In Still Here, still lives operate not as secondary genres but as parallel acts of portraiture. Arrangements and entangles of garden flowers, cut flowers in vases, flowers and fragments from the studio, are approached with the same attentiveness Yang grants his sitters. These works do not symbolise absence or stand in metaphorically for human subjects; rather, they register proximity, duration, and care. A bouquet slightly past bloom, a potted plant bearing the trace of touch, or a brush and rag quietly evidencing the everyday life of the studio becomes a record of presence—of someone having been there. In this way, the still lives function as indirect portraits: intimate reflections of relationships, environments, and emotional states that surround and sustain the people depicted.
Central to Yang’s practice is his signature alla prima technique, a method of painting wet-on-wet that captures immediacy and vitality in a single session. Through this process, likeness becomes only a starting point. Rather than aiming for mere representation, Yang renders emotional atmosphere and inner life, allowing brushwork, gesture, and subtle shifts in tone to convey the psychological complexity of individuals.
“I maintain a measured distance from my subjects. I try to avoid emotional overstatement or interpretive intrusion. I ask my sitters not to construct an expression, and I am interested in the face when it is not performing. I do not build narrative or psychological backstory around the subject. The painting begins and ends with the fact of their presence. My role is not to complete or define a person, but to stay with them”.
The same restraint and attentiveness shape the still lives. Painted with equal immediacy, they resist allegory and sentimentality. Instead, they affirm the material world as a site of shared experience. If the portraits ask what it means to witness another person, the still lives ask what it means to remain with what surrounds them—objects, growth, decay, and the quiet rhythms of life. Together, these works expand the definition of portraiture beyond the face, proposing it as a mode of sustained attention.
Still Here marks a significant milestone in the artist’s career. While Yang has built a dedicated following in the United States, this London debut situates his work within a broader international dialogue around contemporary figurative painting. The exhibition foregrounds portraiture and the still life not simply as depiction, but as an act of closeness—an exchange shaped by empathy, attention, and the shared yet uniquely inflected human condition.
Still Here ultimately expands portraiture beyond the human figure, proposing it as a sustained act of attention. Through both his intimate depictions of sitters and his quietly resonant still lives, Yang constructs an archive of presence—of people, objects, and environments held in careful regard. Together, these works dissolve distinctions between figure and surrounding world, suggesting that to see someone fully is also to see what sustains them. Rendered with sensitivity, immediacy, and profound humanity, the exhibition becomes a meditation on what it means to remain—with another person, with a moment, with the fragile material conditions of being—and on what it means to see and be seen across borders, histories, and generations.