THE TAGLI presents Submerged Attachment, the debut solo exhibition by South Korean artist Heeyoung Noh, on view from 8th-13th May at 67 Great Titchfield Street. Through raw, psychologically charged paintings, Noh investigates the emotional inheritances that bind generations, particularly through maternal relationships, drawing on the ritual of ttaemiri – a traditional Korean bathing practice – and her experience as a South Korean woman living abroad.
The title Submerged Attachment captures a central tension in Noh’s work: the way emotions are both immersive and inescapable, lingering beneath the surface like water. “I believe that tracking inherited stories submerged in the unconscious is the most crucial first step toward understanding oneself,” she notes
Water appears throughout the exhibition as both metaphor and medium. It is present in the gesture of scrubbing, in the droplets suspended on skin, and in the fluid interplay between concealment and exposure. Like memory, water flows and reshapes, but it also lingers – creating new ecosystems, new selves.
In How to rub my back?, these memories take physical form. Scrub directions are carved directly into a wooden panel, mimicking the action of ttaemiri. “It’s about what stays on the body, what sinks in,” says Noh. “I’m interested in the residue – both physical and emotional.”
One of the exhibition’s key works, Fierce Attachment, takes its name from Vivian Gornick’s memoir and depicts a mother and daughter – nude, vulnerable, yet emotionally opaque – flanked by two black dogs. It’s a scene that captures the duality of intimacy: tenderness and unease, love and loss. Rather than offering a fixed narrative, Noh invites viewers into moments of ambivalence – where comfort and discomfort coexist, and where inherited memories linger like dampness in the air.
Presented by THE TAGLI, Submerged Attachment is a visceral meditation on the body as a site of memory, ritual, and resilience. It marks the emergence of a powerful new voice in contemporary painting.
Private view: Thursday 8th May, 6–9pm. Exhibition continues until 13th May at 67 Great Titchfield Street, London.
