BTS Tattooist POLYC to Unveil Around 50 New Works at First Solo Exhibition in Seong-su

Artist POLYC, also known as Lee Sang-jin, will meet audiences in Seoul's Seong-su-dong with his first solo exhibition, "Not Single." POLYC first became widely recognized through tattoo work connected to BTS, Noh Hong Chul, Jo Kwon, Kwon Eunbi and other public figures, and the new exhibition places his work before viewers in a dedicated gallery setting.

The exhibition will be held at the cultural complex Platz2 from June 20 through June 28. Viewing hours run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and admission is free.

At Platz2 in Seong-su, POLYC is presenting around 50 new works to the public at once for the first time. The exhibition expands the lines and images he has left on skin into painting, installation and performance, shifting his practice from the body into a wider spatial experience.

That makes the event more than a celebrity tattooist opening a show. It asks audiences to encounter how images once associated with skin can change in feeling when they are placed inside an exhibition space.

The Seong-su exhibition also follows POLYC's overseas presentation history. In November 2023, he became the first Korean tattooist to take part in exhibitions at London's Saatchi Gallery and Outernet.

Because this is his first solo exhibition after those overseas appearances, the Seong-su show functions as a fuller domestic introduction to his work. For Korean audiences, it brings forward the artist's own canvases and spatial compositions rather than only the bodies of K-pop stars and television personalities through which his name first became known.

"Not Single" begins from an attitude of refusing to see the world through only one viewpoint or one correct answer. A line can create entirely different sensations depending on whether it sits on skin, appears on canvas or is experienced as a viewer walks around it in a room. That shift in perception is central to the exhibition. POLYC has said that the world cannot be understood through a single perspective alone.

For K-entertainment fans, POLYC's work first reached many people through familiar faces. Tattoos on idols and broadcasters can become clues to more than personal taste, pointing to an activity image, a way of communicating with fans and an identity outside the stage or screen.

This solo exhibition redirects that attention. Instead of focusing only on drawings engraved on famous bodies, it invites viewers to look at which lines the artist chooses and what kinds of scenes he has tried to create.

An opening party is scheduled for the first day of the exhibition, June 20, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The program includes a live jazz performance and time with the artist, giving visitors a chance to encounter the work at closer range.

The main work introduced for the exhibition is "Colors, Flowers and an Afternoon." Presented within a short nine-day run, with free admission in Seong-su-dong, a district known in the article as a young cultural consumption area, "Not Single" frames POLYC not as someone else's tattooist but as an independent artist in his own name. The exhibition continues at Platz2 in Seong-su-dong until June 28.