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GaHee Park’s solo exhibition, “Soft Shell,” presents new oil paintings at Jessica Silverman in San Francisco through Dec. 19, 2026. The works combine women, domestic objects and surreal disruptions to explore safety, vulnerability and the uneasy boundary between reality and fantasy.
GaHee Park’s solo exhibition “Soft Shell” is on view at Jessica Silverman in San Francisco through Dec. 19, 2026, bringing together oil paintings that combine faceted female faces, domestic interiors and surreal details. The new work places familiar images of comfort alongside unsettling intrusions, using that contrast to examine protection, vulnerability and the uncertain line between reality and fantasy.
The paintings in “Soft Shell” bring together figures, landscapes and still lifes in scenes that can initially seem calm. Their unease emerges through details: an eye appears inside a goblet, a finger creeps from beneath a curtain, and a dark cloud gathers above a woman on a beach. In “Bouquet with a Visitor,” an advancing digit interrupts a flower arrangement. The scenes shift between ordinary domestic imagery and events that do not quite belong there.
The exhibition includes works such as “Woman and Moth in Eclipse,” “Soft Shell,” “Eating Angel” and “Dream of a Bird,” all dated 2026 and made in oil on linen. The reported dimensions range from 16 by 20 inches for “Soft Shell” to 90 by 72 inches for “Eating Angel.” In the latter, a white T-shirt and halo lie on the floor while a cat appears to have picked at a gleaming wing, combining religious imagery with a wry, domestic scene.
Park also uses fruit and other objects to suggest bodily forms. In “Fish Bowl with Fruits,” still-life imagery joins the exhibition’s broader play between beauty and the grotesque. According to the report, the paintings draw on Surrealist conventions while placing women at the center of their own scenes. Jessica Silverman’s gallery describes Park’s female figures as characters who resist being reduced to passive subjects, drawing viewers into an exchange of gazes.
Women at the Center of the Gaze
The exhibition’s significance lies in how it recasts familiar Surrealist devices through women who appear direct, self-possessed and difficult to read. The gallery says Park’s heroines refuse to be conquered and engage the viewer through a “ping pong” of gazes. That description is the gallery’s interpretation, rather than a statement independently established by the works’ presentation.
Park’s scenes also challenge the idea that domestic settings automatically provide comfort. Bowls of fruit, flowers, clothing and other familiar objects sit beside unexplained eyes, disembodied body parts and unsettling transformations. The contrast makes the exhibition’s subject legible without reducing the paintings to a single narrative: what appears protective can remain incomplete, and what looks peaceful may contain a threat or joke.
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Comfort With an Unsettling Side
“Soft Shell” takes its name from Park’s stated interest in the containers people inhabit to feel safe. The report attributes to the artist the idea that these containers do not protect people completely. That premise links the exhibition’s domestic imagery with its recurring shifts between interior and exterior, landscape and room, beauty and grotesque form.
Park’s paintings are described as having glassy-eyed female characters and subtly strange, sometimes darkly comic narratives. In “Woman on the Beach with a Bird,” an approaching dark cloud unsettles the coastal setting; in “Eating Angel,” the remains of an angelic figure become part of a scene involving a cat. The works use these small narrative clues rather than a single stated plot to make the viewer question what has happened and what may happen next.
““the containers of life that we inhabit to feel safe, but which do not protect us completely.””
— GaHee Park, as quoted in the exhibition report
Details Beyond the Exhibition Report
The available report does not specify whether “Soft Shell” is accompanied by a public program, artist talk or additional events. It also does not provide further information about the exhibition’s installation or whether the listed works represent every painting on view. The gallery’s account of the figures’ relationship to the viewer is an interpretive statement; the source does not include a longer comment from Park about individual paintings.
Exhibition Runs Through December
“Soft Shell” remains on view at Jessica Silverman in San Francisco through Dec. 19, 2026. Readers seeking visit information or updates can check the gallery’s current exhibition materials; the source report also points to Park’s Instagram for updates. No later exhibition dates or additional public events were specified in the material available.
Key Questions
Where can visitors see GaHee Park’s “Soft Shell”?
The exhibition is at Jessica Silverman in San Francisco.
How long is the exhibition on view?
“Soft Shell” continues through Dec. 19, 2026.
What kinds of works are included?
The exhibition features 2026 oil paintings on linen, including “Soft Shell,” “Eating Angel,” “Dream of a Bird” and “Woman and Moth in Eclipse.”
What themes does Park explore in the exhibition?
The paintings explore safety and vulnerability, along with shifting relationships between domestic interiors and landscapes, beauty and grotesque imagery, and reality and fantasy.
Source: thisiscolossal.com
