Se Young Au (b. 1984, Seoul) is an artist who lives and works in Los Angeles.

Se Young Au's practice is rooted in the transmutation of grief, redirected toward the creation of alternative worlds. As a Korean transnational adopted person, Au approaches loss as something that unfolds simultaneously across lived experience, cultural history, and geopolitics. Their work is shaped by research situating their own displacement within broader systems of imposed identity, cultural erasure, and spatial dispossession.

Additionally, Au examines how non-white bodies are treated as resources within systems, intersecting structures that operate through control, extraction, and erasure. Rather than addressing these forces through a linear narrative, they work with digital composites that allow multiple truths and divergent timelines to coexist. These nonlinear environments function as interventions, tending to what has ruptured and imagining forms of repair that move beyond resolution.

Multisensory experience is central to Au’s work. Color, sound, and scent are deployed as transportative devices, giving the receiver permission to feel beyond the restrictive binary. Scent, in particular, is both agile and slow, creating space for reflection and interplay with memory. Their immersive installations serve as portals into altered perceptual states and an invitation to be present.

Collaboration extends these inquiries into shared space and collective experience. As co-founder of Errare, a sensory spatial design studio formed with their partner Kaitlyn Darby, Au develops immersive environments that explore ecological attunement, temporal collapse, and the politics of embodiment.

Au received their BA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. They have exhibited in Seattle at the Henry Art Gallery, AHL Foundation in New York City, El Segundo Museum of Art, The Institute of Art and Olfaction, Craft Contemporary Museum, and RIP Space in Los Angeles. They have been a guest artist-lecturer at Cornell University and the University of California, Irvine. Additionally, Au writes a quarterly dispatch, Transmissions, which explores olfaction as a tool for transmuting grief.

Se Young Au - Curriculum Vitae

Biographical 

                b. 1984   Seoul, South Korea

Education

2020                    SMC | visual arts: continuing education |  Santa Monica, CA

2017-present      Institute of Art and Olfaction   | scent studies  |  Los Angeles, CA

2004-2005          Antonio de Nebrija  |  study abroad  | Madrid, Spain

2002-2007          Columbia College Chicago |  Bachelor of Arts  |  Photography  |  Chicago, IL

Guest Artist/Educator

2024                     University of California at Irvine | Irvine, CA

2024 RISD (invited) | Providence, RI

2023 Carlow University | Pittsburgh, PA 

2023 Cornell University: East Asian symposium, artist/guest lecturer  | Ithaca, NY

2022                      HOLA (Heart of Los Angeles) | Los Angeles, CA

Solo Exhibition

2023               Institute of Art and Olfaction | A Clearing | Los Angeles, CA 

Select Group Exhibitions

2026 Scent + Art Festival | Looking Through the Fog of Uncertainty | Riga, Latvia

2026 GOH Exhibitions | Breathe With Me | Chicago, IL

2025 RIP Space | System Support, fundraiser | Los Angeles, CA

2025 Plot | Materials and Processes for an Expanding World | Los Angeles, CA

2025*             RIP Space | The Shape of Time | Los Angeles, CA 

2025                    Craft Contemporary Museum | Ether | Los Angeles, CA 

2025                    UC Irvine | (Un)natural Confluences | Irvine, CA

2025                    LA County Public Art |  Reflections  | Los Angeles, CA (forthcoming)

2024             Space Mirage | WaladaKan Good, Ssalon | Seoul, South Korea 

2024             PSLA | WaladaKan Good, Ssalon | Los Angeles, CA 

2022             AHL Foundation | Sensoria |  New York, NY 

2022      LA Artcore |   Dear Mother,  | Los Angeles, CA

2022             Luna Anaïs Gallery at D2  |  Radical Dawn |  Los Angeles, CA 

2021             El Segundo Museum of Art  |  blue/s  |  El Segundo, CA

2020             Henry Art Gallery  |  Set in Motion |  Seattle, WA

2015             A+D Gallery  |  Classical Mechanics   |  Chicago, IL

2014                    Benefit for Mutual Aid  |  Auction |  Brooklyn, NY

2012                    Societe Alexandra Sens  | Treadwash  |  Paris, France

2011                    Wandering Bears | Sunnyside Up |  Margate, UK

2010             First Eyes Festival |  Chain Letter  |  Paris, France

2010                    Chicago: Next |  Proximity |  Chicago, IL

2010                    Zhou B Center |  Territories  |  Chicago, IL

2009                    Version/ Co-Prosperity Sphere  |  Silent Auction |  Chicago, IL

2007                    Raw Space  |  Manifest- BFA Show   |  Chicago, IL

Published essays/ interviews

2024                    Dialogues | Interview with Clifford Prince King | Foundwork 

2024                    Transmissions | The Ways in Which to Reach You | Varyer

2023             Transmissions | Scenting the Multiverse | Varyer

2022             Transmissions | Shapes of Perception |  Varyer

              Transmissions | Seeds of Transference | Varyer 

2021                    Transmissions | Volume 1 | Varyer 

Selected Press

2023             Noodle | Issue 4 | Interview with Kenneth Ng 

2023                    The Art Direction Show | Artist Interview‍ ‍

2022                    New York Times  |  Can Scent Be Democratized? | by Betty Hallock

2021                    El Segundo Museum of Art | Artist Interview

Distinctions

2026 Foundation of Contemporary Arts | Creative Research Grant nominee

2025             Foundation of Contemporary Arts | Emergency Fund Grant recipient

2023                    Fountainhead Residency nominee 

2022 Fountainhead Residency nominee 

*in collaboration with Errare Studio