Henrik Uldalen, a Korean-born artist adopted by a Norwegian family as an infant, has spent most of his life avoiding conversations about his origins. Born in Seoul in December 1986 and adopted when just a few months old, Uldalen grew up in Asker, a small town outside Oslo, with loving adoptive parents, two siblings, and a close circle of friends. For decades, he actively sought to blend into Norwegian society, refusing to acknowledge the part of his identity tied to his birth country.
"I spent the majority of my life up until last year actively avoiding conversations about adoption," Uldalen revealed in a recent interview. "I shut down any attempt from my parents to talk about Korea and learn more about my life there." The quiet child who once found refuge in drawing and dreamed of becoming an art teacher had become a professional artist living in London for about a decade, but remained disconnected from his Korean heritage.
This deliberate avoidance began to take its toll over the years. Uldalen recognized that "many things in my life directly correlated with refusing my true self – a lack of belonging anywhere, rootlessness, and biological and physical differences from Norwegians and most Westerners." The internal struggle with identity and belonging would eventually become central themes in his artistic work, though he didn't initially realize the connection.
The turning point came when Whitestone Gallery Seoul invited him to hold a solo exhibition. This invitation forced Uldalen to confront the very aspects of his identity he had long suppressed. The resulting exhibition, titled "Lost/Found," ran from August 30 to October 19 and featured approximately 30 works that served as what he describes as "a raw and honest account of emotions around betrayal, abandonment and identity, but also acceptance and love."
"In order to find myself and really let go, I needed to paint primitively, almost like a child," Uldalen explained about his approach to the exhibition. The paintings combined portraits with abstract forms, with one dominant motif appearing throughout: distorted faces. These distorted visages, created by burning parts of the canvas or applying chemicals and wiping them away, reflect his own sense of being lost and have appeared in his previous works featuring human figures.
The artist revealed that his exploration of identity through art has been a long journey of self-discovery. "A large portion of my work over the past 15 years has revolved around existentialism, identity and change," he said. "It's taken years of self-discovery to understand myself and my art. Only in recent years have I realized that much of what I talked about in my earlier works is directly related to adoption, for better and worse."
Park Ji-young, director of Whitestone Gallery Seoul, explained that Uldalen's personal background was what initially drew her attention to his work. "Each year, we try to introduce European artists who aren't well-known in Korea," Park noted. "When we were selecting artists to reach out to, his personal story made him stand out." She observed that visitors unfamiliar with Uldalen's background found the paintings "strong and frightening at first glance," but their understanding deepened significantly once they learned his story.
Uldalen works primarily in oil painting, the medium that changed his career trajectory. "I always wanted to be an art teacher, but at 19, I discovered oil painting and that was it. I knew this was what I wanted to do for life," he recalled. However, he doesn't want to be constrained by a single medium and has recently begun exploring videography and cinematography as new forms of artistic expression.
The exhibition marked Uldalen's first meaningful return to Korea in nearly 25 years. His last visit was at age 16 with his Norwegian parents, but he admits he "had no interest" and was "just a tourist" at the time. This recent trip proved dramatically different, both in terms of his mindset and the reception he received.
When Uldalen accepted the gallery's invitation, he had an emotional conversation with his adoptive parents in Norway. "After accepting the gallery's offer, I went to Norway and we spoke about it. Both of them cried – it was the first time I'd seen my dad cry – but out of happiness," he shared. "They've wanted me to explore this part of my life for a long time. They told me, 'Don't worry, Henrik. Go on this journey and explore.' It was a really wonderful and touching moment."
The artist's experience in Korea exceeded his expectations in terms of the warmth and openness he encountered. "I didn't expect the openness and willingness to keep the dialogue going from Koreans who visited the show," Uldalen said. "At the gallery, I was called brother and son several times. I had long conversations and even cried with visitors. It was eye-opening and I now feel a strong urge to continue learning about Korea – the culture and its people."
During his stay, Uldalen and his wife explored Seoul's narrow alleys, subways, and traditional markets, experiencing what he described as "a good vibe." The positive experience has prompted the couple to plan a return visit next year. The exhibition also connected him with other Korean adoptees who reached out both before and after the show.
"It's been a wild ride hearing all these stories – some horrendous, some wonderful," Uldalen reflected on the adoptee experiences shared with him. "I had a wonderful upbringing, and many others did too, while some had the most horrible experiences." Learning about the Korean government's role in perpetuating systematic fraud in overseas adoptions was unsettling for him, but the experience reinforced an important lesson: "The doors you avoid the most are exactly the ones you should open."
