Los Angeles-based artist Seonna Hong is both an artist and an animator. In addition to making her paintings, she paints backgrounds for feature and television animation and was recently awarded an Emmy for Individual Achievement in Background Styling for her work on Nickelodeon's My Life as a Teenage Robot. Her work has been published in the Artistic Utopia calendar, the Beatsville Sci-fi Western and The Truth Show books.

Hong paints on wood panels and canvas, often in bright acid colors in a retro style that suggests anime, cartooning and children's books among other references. Many of the paintings include collage elements that give her work the look of a 3-D pop-up book. In her paintings, Hong focuses on children as the embodiment of humanizing power. Children are her protagonists, acting out the dramas in her narratives.

The exhibition will feature work from several series including Animus, Railroad and People in the City. Hong completed the nostalgic looking Railroad series after her daughter was born, suggesting the nonstop forward momentum that childrearing and working engenders. The pieces seem to suggest yearning and the innocence of the contemplative young girls that Hong features in her work. Animus refers to dealing with bewildering people and situations through a young girl's battle with her fears that take the shape of a large dog. According to Hong, the main character in many of the works is a combination of herself and her daughter.

Seonna Hong received her B.A. from California State University, Long Beach. She has had solo exhibitions at sixspace, Los Angeles, and Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York. This is her first solo museum exhibition.