Next Stop: Tomorrow

ATELIER AKI is pleased to present 《 Next Stop: Tomorrow 》 , a solo exhibition by Jeong Seongjoon, on view from August 20 to October 3, 2026. Based between South Korea and Beijing , Jeong Seongjoon has consistently explored the relationship between humans and nature, proposing through allegorical yet lucid narratives that art can reshape the way we perceive and relate to the environment. Marking the artist's first solo exhibition at ATELIER AKI in three years, the exhibition expands his long-standing exploration of the coexistence between humans and nature into a new narrative chapter.In Jeong's latest works, the animals that once journeyed in search of a utopia are no longer portrayed as vulnerable beings in need of protection. Instead, they emerge as companions who move forward alongside humanity, collectively shaping tomorrow. The focus thus shifts from the journey of individual beings to a shared voyage grounded in choice, solidarity, and coexistence. The exhibition features approximately fifteen new paintings, including a monumental work spanning nearly three meters in width that encapsulates this significant narrative transition.

The climate crisis is no longer a distant warning of the future. Extreme heat, floods, and wildfires have become recurring realities, yet as images of disaster accumulate, our sensitivity to them often diminishes. Rather than reiterating the severity of the climate crisis through scenes of catastrophe, Jeong Seongjoon asks a different question: how might we choose to relate to one another, and what kind of future can we create together within a world already shaped by crisis? The exhibition title, ‘Next Stop: Tomorrow’, evokes the familiar announcement heard on public transit while simultaneously serving as a quiet promise addressed to all living beings navigating the present. Tomorrow is not a fixed destination waiting at the end of the journey, but a possibility that always lies one stop ahead that is determined by the choices and actions we take today. Throughout the exhibition, endangered animals, including polar bears, emperor penguins, red pandas, and lemurs, appear as recurring protagonists. While they symbolize species threatened with extinction, they also embody the fragile relationship between human civilization and the natural world. In Jeong's earlier works, these animals set out in search of a utopia where they might find refuge. In this new body of work, however, utopia is no longer imagined as a distant place waiting to be discovered. Instead, it is redefined as a way of coexistence that comes into being only when different beings recognize one another, depend upon one another, and choose to move forward together.

What lends Jeong Seongjoon's allegorical world its emotional immediacy and visual conviction is his meticulously constructed visual language. Drawing from real urban and natural landscapes, the artist carefully builds convincing spaces through perspective, light, atmosphere, reflections on water, and the tactile surfaces of architecture. Within these familiar settings, he introduces animals alongside trams, ships, airplanes, and monuments of human civilization. Through finely layered brushwork and nuanced color, Jeong gives visual plausibility to otherwise impossible encounters, transforming recognizable places into stages for imagined realities. Recurring motifs such as polar bears and emperor penguins appear alongside globally familiar symbols of contemporary consumer culture, including Starbucks, Nike, and Snoopy. While these familiar images draw viewers into the paintings, their unexpected juxtaposition with endangered animals and unfamiliar landscapes exposes the tensions between consumer society and the natural world. Rather than reducing these contrasts to a singular environmental message, Jeong invites a more nuanced reflection on the intertwined relationship between human desire and the survival of nature. Making its debut in this exhibition, 〈 A Romantic View 〉 (2026) brings together the central themes of Jeong's latest body of work. Against a dark sea, small boats carrying animals drift among fragments of melting ice, while the Statue of Liberty stands isolated in the distance. Long regarded as a symbol of freedom and progress, the monument becomes, within this flooded landscape, a reminder of the fragility of human civilization. The drifting ice, meanwhile, serves as a quiet guide for the animals' continuing journey. Stretching across two connected canvases, the sea unites the scattered movements of the animals into a single current. Spanning nearly three meters in width, the work immerses viewers within the vastness of this shared voyage, bringing what might seem like a distant crisis into the immediacy of the present and inviting us to consider it as a reality we must navigate together.

Throughout the exhibition, the animals' journey is never framed as an epic tale of heroism. Instead, they are fellow travelers who search for disappearing ice, rely on one another, and simply find ways to move forward together. At times they smile as they share an ice cream; at others, they join forces to carry large blocks of ice, clumsily attempting to return them to the melting Arctic. Their optimism is not born of na?vet? or denial, but of a quiet determination to imagine a future even while acknowledging the reality of ecological crisis. Within Jeong's paintings, ice becomes a recurring metaphor for the time that still remains: a tomorrow entrusted to future generations and a form of hope that has not yet been exhausted. His world suggests that coexistence does not begin with grand declarations or heroic acts of salvation, but with the everyday choice to recognize another's presence. Rather than foregrounding fear or guilt, Jeong transforms the climate crisis into a question of relationships and responsibility through meticulously rendered landscapes populated by familiar animals and symbols of contemporary life. In doing so, this exhibition marks a significant evolution in the artist's practice. What once appeared as the adventures of individual animals expands into a broader meditation on the ecological crisis, the trajectory of human civilization, and the shared future that lies one stop ahead.

《 Next Stop: Tomorrow 》 does not define what the future will look like. Instead, through the quiet journey of beings who choose to trust one another and move in the same direction, it leaves viewers with a question: if tomorrow is not a predetermined destination, but something shaped by the choices we make and the relationships we build today, then what kind of world are we moving toward? The last fragments of ice have not yet disappeared, and Jeong's small travelers continue their journey toward tomorrow.

With a practice spanning Beijing and South Korea, Jeong Seongjoon (b. 1981) studied at the Ilya Repin St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Russia before earning an M.F.A. from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, where he became the first international student to graduate as valedictorian. He later received a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Chonnam National University, where he currently serves as Professor in the Department of Fine Arts.

Jeong's work has received international recognition, notably through its acquisition by the Fondation Louis Vuitton, established by Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH. His works are also held in major public and private collections, including the CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), Gwangju Museum of Art, the Park Seo-Bo Foundation, the Anna Pao Sohmen Foundation (Hong Kong), Holiday Inn Art Museum (Shanghai), Cheongmok Art Museum, Vanke Group, Sunchon National University , and Hyoseok Co., Ltd. Selected solo exhibitions include Next Stop: Tomorrow (forthcoming, ATELIER AKI, Seoul, 2026), They Say, Yesterday's City (Zuozi Gallery, Beijing, 2025), To My Earth: What a Wonderful World (ATELIER AKI, Seoul, 2023), Urban Trip (Gallery Earth, Seoul, 2022), I NEED U (Gallery Joeun, Seoul, 2022), and Animal Comedy: A Journey to Paradise (798 Author Gallery, Beijing, 2018). His work has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions at institutions including the Gwangju Museum of Art, CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), Jeju Culture and Arts Center, Hwasun Choi Sang-Jun Art Museum, and the Berlin University of the Arts, among others.