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

Se Young Au’s artistic practice investigates how loss can be reimagined as generative world-building. Through digitally constructed spaces, they create conditions in which viewers may access emotional registers that exceed normative binaries, reclaiming personal mythology and embodied agency even as lived experience is shaped by fractured, nonlinear narratives. As a Korean transnational adopted person, Au examines how displacement operates simultaneously at the personal, cultural, and geopolitical scales. Their research engages the history of Korea under Japanese occupation as well as the ongoing presence of U.S. military forces, situating their biography within a broader matrix of imposed identity, cultural erasure, and spatial dispossession. Their work interrogates how non-white bodies are rendered as capital within systems such as international adoption and the carceral state, raising questions about accountability, memory, and the politics of who is granted the right to dignity. By exploring intersecting systems that brutalize people by design, Au creates composites of digital imagery that allow multiple truths and divergent timelines to coexist, functioning as nonlinear interventions that attempt to repair what has been historically extracted. Distilling these investigations across mediums allows them to articulate ideas in full dimensionality.

Au’s practice is inherently multisensory, integrating color, sound, and scent to evoke layered emotional and embodied responses. They use scent as an agile medium capable of expressing the ineffable and supporting experiences that resist binary structures. Studies at the Institute of Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles have enabled them to create immersive environments, producing installations that serve as portals into alternative affective and perceptual states, with scent offering a uniquely direct pathway into memory and consciousness.

Collaborative practice further extends Au’s investigations into affect, embodiment, and spatial reverence. As the co-founder of Errare—a sensory spatial design studio established with their partner, Kaitlyn Darby—they develop multisensory work that examines temporal collapse, ecological attunement, and the politics of embodied presence. Across mediums, Au pursues a multidisciplinary language that addresses both the pervasiveness of loss and the transformative potential of sensory experience, embracing the core tension in their work: that devastation and vitality coexist, and that creating space for both sustains possibility.

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. Au was recently a recipient of an Emergency Fund Grant from the Foundation of Contemporary Art. They have been a guest artist lecturer at Cornell University and the University of California at 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 certification  |  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

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

2025             Recipient of Emergency Fund Grant | Foundation of Contemporary Arts

2023                    Fountainhead Residency nominee 

2022             Fountainhead Residency nominee 

*in collaboration with Errare Studio