JEONG JIHYUN, NAKED LANDSCAPE

jeong jihyun naked landsc ape

BECOMING A hazy glare on a stripped consciousness

No matter how many ar tworks one has experienced, a blurry vision is always something unexpected while walking around a painter’s studio. When looking at Jeong Jihyun’s paintings, an immediate feeling of dizziness quickly evolves to a comfor table space that invites to change position. Although tension between ar twork and viewer is still trendy and relevant, Jeong forsakes the mere awareness of spectatorship as an objectified process to be observed. Instead, in Naked Landscape she invites us to diffuse the boundaries between self and otherness by offering a sensorial space in order to inhabit as one entity through perception. The exhibition presents itself as atmospheric scenery of hybrid embodiments and a slow motion feeling that sets up the illusion of constant transformation.

When I initially encountered Jeong’s work, I was invited to visit her studio in London. The first sight was ‘Without’ (2011). Having forgotten that I recently got prescription glasses, I tried to compensate my initial feeling of disorientation by looking for them. However, once I put them on, I realized that in fact the painting was a very detailed and impressively blurred image. After a while, it became clear that the first impression was not random, but indeed a very subtle and poetic achievement of the painting itself. Placing the viewer in a doubtful position initiates a process of dislocation in terms of perception. Analysis and interpretation are pushed away by the initial feeling of a physical failure on the viewer’s body: the eyes. Once the viewer is able to locate himself in relationship with the painting, a rich field of sensorial feelings have already trespassed both body and mind, preventing thought from taking over.

The composition of the images normally reinforces the elusiveness of perception. Composed by hybridising representations of life forms and preconceptions of beauty, ugliness, pleasure and disgust, Jeong’s paintings become alive entities, making difficult to pin down their nature. With allusions to animal and plant, reality and fantasy, beautiful and grotesque, the work is in permanent movement despite the medium. Through impeccable technique, Jeong plays with sensorial displacement, melting both concepts and representations of body organs, plants and animal references.

Flatness in her painting is challenged through an airbrushing technique that diffuses the images, creating the illusion of depth by combining occasional appearances of focused silhouettes which seem to emerge from a hazy atmosphere. Her paintings reference clearly a haptic space aiming to extend a two dimensional media into the strangeness and textures of a three dimensional world. The atmosphere feels almost fluid, suggesting movement, even introducing a hint of four-dimensional qualities. Evoking a tactile experience, subtle motion and deepness are suddenly flattened by coloured dots, defined shapes of flowers or animals. Defined dots giving temporary focus, or emerging butterflies permanently test the viewer in a sensorial and intellectual way.

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Flatness and deepness generate a motion that mirrors the constant intrusion of the self into the otherness and vice versa; continual displacement of perception touches in the inevitable process of fusion established between viewer and painting. Naked Landscape induces body and mind to explore the oddities of losing their specific qualities and becoming mixed entities. Both intellect and body are dispossessed of their respective attires.

Relentless psychological references are present throughout the ar tist’s works. Subjectivity is the protagonist of the work. A double process is constantly occurring: we are taken into Jeong’s reflections of her own subjectivity and are subjected to question our own. An almost existential feeling appears when the images are perceived as live organisms that emerge from each other. The search for cer tain plastic permeability allows the figurative and abstract to transform into one another. Always between the boundaries of perception, the work constantly refers to an intricate dynamic amid subject and object, senses and thought, movement and stillness.

The viewers immersion into a self-assessment stage of their own way of perceiving has echoes of the Rorschach Test. Created by a Freudian psychoanalyst, Hermann Rorschach, the test is a crucial reference for ways of interpreting sensorial perception. Based on stimulation, the test offers abstract inkblot images that can be perceived in numerous ways. No anterior signification is provided and therefore the ‘viewer’ often builds up amorphous images into hybrid creatures or situations. Focusing on imagination and consciousness, the Rorschach Test brings out a delicate and almost ungraspable stage between perception and actual thinking. The vagueness of the Rorschach Test images privileges perception as a way of constructing consciousness and meaning. In a similar way, Jeong privileges perception by making the viewer navigate within the impreciseness of the scenery. Multiple possible interpretations could be seen from her images: marine life, plants, body organs or fictional beings. Sometimes there is even space to make associations with mysterious yet fascinating microscopic pictures that have been enlarged. Nothing has a defined label to be categorized.

Ambiguity and elusiveness are the building blocks of her images.

The Rorschach Test also reveals what lies behind a thinking process, helping psychoanalysts to find possible disorders or trauma. In a similar fashion, Jeong’s work points to the traumatic elements of a hybrid existence.

The sudden awareness of a presence (otherness) inside the self is por trayed with traces of fright and trauma; however at the same time is conveyed as a pleasant yet puzzling understanding of the true nature of the world.

In an era when painting survives with great dignity but tremendous struggle, it is always intriguing to observe the work of ar tists that use the medium not only to convey their ar tistic preoccupations but also to reflect on the possibilities of painting to surpass its traditional bi-dimensionality. When Jeong takes us into the illusion of some physical depth in her works, she is also insinuating a contradiction by situating the viewer in an apparent a-temporal instance that contrasts with a protracted movement, letting us gaze at blurry, viscous and undetermined images. This contradiction focuses with remarkable determination on perception, rather

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than in elucidation of the works. As shown in Budding, Flying (2012), time is present both as movement and remembrance, por traying traces of appearances of life emerged from the amorphous creation. Butterflies are a reference to time, both when carefully drawn and also when recalling diluted outlines of the ones that have emerged and are already gone.

In Encounter (2011), the ar tist introduces a form that implies fragmentation. Composed by 90 pieces of paper, she purposely builds up a shape that seems alive. However, the work is meant to be repeatedly separated and reintegrated. Re-organizing fragments becomes an action that allows time to flow within the painting. Without scars or oddities, fragmentation implies an organic healing process after a rupture, which filters temporality all over the concept of the painting itself. The work has a resonance of animation and early moving image bringing out strong connections with time, perception and subjectivity.

Adding even another level to temporal reminiscences, the ar tist includes a traditional Asian format to Plum Blossom Trees and Petal Grave (2011), using paper rolls as a way to display her paintings. It implies an action to be done, suggesting infinity. The painting is always in the process of revealing itself. It is permanently becoming and can always be extended. Not everything is given by the first perception, and time is introduced by the notion of an action that needs to be executed. With plenty of allegories and metaphors, the work is rich in its intricate illusion of movement: motionless paintings insinuating the fluidity and sinuosity of time.

Standing on the shaky grounds of uncer tainty and imprecision, Jeong‘s work has solid references to the notion of change, permeability, self and otherness. Existence in a present continuous form implies an ontological perspective. Something that ‘is’ somehow represents no movement, it is defined and fixated.

Something that ‘was’ is also an existence trapped in the past, ontologically speaking. But something that ‘is being’ implies to be positioned in an a-temporal instance, as every occasion one tries to pin it down, it’s gone already. This has implications in the existence of reality. If everything is in permanent change, reality then becomes a mere illusion. Somehow ‘being’ and ‘nothingness’ are closely related. They constantly transform into each other and it is not possible to snatch them in order to define them. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher from the antiquity, was famous for his thought based on permanent state of motion. There is no essence, and in that sense, there is no defined way to talk about anything: no subjects, objects or things are immutable.

Contrasting with other philosophers that believed our senses to be tools of deception, Heraclitus relied on them as the way of realising that everything is in never ending motion. His famous words, ‘πάντα ῥεῖ’, (everything flows) suggest that existence is an ever-present state of change and becoming. In the same way Jeong keeps pointing out the flowing nature of perception and physicality. Within the flow, a psychological journey is exposed, plenty of strangeness, trauma, awakening and awareness. An intimate inner-self endures an everlasting state of revealing and transforming. Prompting consciousness towards the crucial impor tance of perception as constant change, Naked Landscape positions the spectator in a constant state of dislocation leaving the viewer immersed in permanent motion and perpetual state of becoming.

Lucía Gómez-Mejía Du Silence Independant Writer

naked landsc ape

Budding, Flying | acr ylic, ink & oil on canvas | 37.9 x 45.5 cm | 2010

Budding, Flying | acr ylic, ink & oil on canvas | 145 x 112 cm | 2012

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Growing, Flying | acr ylic, ink & oil on canvas | 145 x 112 cm | 2011

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Encounter acr ylic & ink on 90 pieces of paper 210 x 268 cm 2011

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Without | acr ylic, ink & oil on canvas | 200 x 160 cm | 2011

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Petal Grave (Left) / Two Plum Blossom Trees (Middle & Right) ink on paper | 360 x 150 cm each | 2011

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Flow | acr ylic & ink on canvas | 100 x 100 cm | 2012

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Encounter | acr ylic, ink & oil on 4 canvases | 200 x 200 cm | 2012

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JEONG JIHYUN ( b1975 ) EDUCATION

Wada Fine Ar ts, Tokyo, Japan

2011 MFA in Fine Ar t, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK

The 1st Insa Ar t Festival, Sun Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2008 Completion of Ph.D Course of Fine Ar ts Philosophy, Hong-ik University,

Real Seeing & Real View–Made in Korea, Insa Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea Red & Blue–View on the Surface, Insa Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea

Seoul, Korea

Diversity in Form and Thought: Recent works of Korean Ar tists,

2002 MFA, Painting Dept., Graduate School, Hong-ik University, Seoul, Korea

Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Ar t, Shanghai, China

2000 BFA, Painting Dept., College of Fine Ar ts, Hong-ik University, Seoul, Korea

The 21st Century Contemporary Paintings, Dong-a Museum, Deagoo, Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

No Bounds, Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea

2012 Naked Landscape, Hada Contemporary, London, UK Naked Landscape, Cité internationale des Ar ts, Paris, France

2006 Korean Ar t-Vision 2007, Gana Forum Space, Seoul, Korea Korea-France Young Ar tists Festival,

2008 A Deser t Garden, Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea

Modern Culture Center, Icheon, Korea

Spring of Deser t, Zhu Qizhan Ar t Museum, Shanghai, China

Diversity in Form and Thought: Recent works of Korean Ar tists,

2005 in My Room, Gallery Doll, Seoul, Korea

Museum of Imperial City, Beijing, China

Persephone’s Secret Room, Munhwa Ilbo Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2003 Fatal Rest, Do Ar t Gallery, Seoul, Korea

The 5th Cutting Edge, Gana Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

We Meet Prague, Korean Contemporary 16 Ar tists Exhibition,

2012 Reality Equals Dream, ION Ar t Gallery, Singapore, Singapore

Passage Gallery, Prague, Czech

Space & Woman, Seoul Gallery, Seoul, Korea

40 Ar tists Exhibition of Contemporary Ar t, Insa Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea

The Open West 2012, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, UK 5TH 4482 [SASAPARI] Exhibition: Map the Korea,

2005 7 Perspectives–Merry Christmas, Friends!, Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea

Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, London, UK

Life, Woman, Seoul Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

Demeures, Cité internationale des Ar ts, Paris, France

The 1st Seoul Young Ar tists Biennial, Seoul Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

2011 Korean Collective Den Haag 2011, Gallery Noordeinde, Hague, Netherland

The 2nd Cutting Edge, Seoul Auction Center, Seoul, Korea

Passages Intemporels, Cité internationale des Ar ts, Paris, France AF’s H, Ar t & Antiques Fair ’s-Her togenbosch,

Korean Woman Ar tists Exhibition,

Brabanthallen, ’s-Her togenbosch, Netherland

Visby Museum of Ar t, Stockholm, Sweden

Korean Collective Basel 2011,

Haman Ar t Center Opening Exhibition, Haman Ar t Center, Haman, Korea Korea Ar t Festival 2005, Sejong Center, Seoul, Korea

Hall 33, Contemporary Ar t Center Basel, Basel, Switzerland Jeong Ji-hyun/ Mo Jun-seok/ Hwang Chang-ha, Three-Ar tists Exhibition,

2004 Red Heaven, Changdong Ar t Studio, Seoul, Korea The 10th Young Ar tists Remark, Sejong Center, Seoul, Korea

Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea

Global Ar t in New York, New York World Trade Gallery, New York, USA

2010 Korean Collective London 2010, Albemarle Gallery, London, UK Final Show of Jangheung Residency, Gana Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea

Naked Landscape, Three-Ar tists Exhibition,

Sun Gallery 33rd anniversary Exhibition, Sun Gallery, Seoul, Korea

Korean Electronic Power Company Plaza Gallery, Seoul, Korea Global Ar t in Korea-Japan, Chonglo Gallery, Seoul, Korea

Painting+, Gallery Sun Gangnam, Seoul, Korea Ar t Dubai 2010, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE

2003 Oh! Happy Day, Theater Choo, Seoul, Korea Hong-ik Woman Ar tists Exhibition, Insa Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea

2009 PULSE Miami 2009, The Ice Palace, Miami, USA Korean International Ar t Fair 2009, COEX, Seoul, Korea

2001 The 7th Young Ar tists Remark, Seoul Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

Next Generation, Open Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea

2000 The 1st G.P.S. ‘Da-bal’, Hong-ik Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

Hong-ik Ar t·Design Festival 2009, Hong-ik Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

Project 210 House of The Museum of Coal Town, Two-Ar tists Exhibition,

Ar t Road 77–with Ar t, with Ar tist!, Gallery Jireh, Heyri Ar tist Valley, Korea

Samtan Coal Mine, Kohan, Korea Self-Por trait.net, Seokyung Gallery, Seoul, Korea

The Painting as Furniture, Jangheung Ar t Park Red Space, Jangheung, Korea People, Nature–the Message of Life and Desire,

Seoul Trade Exhibition & Convention, Seoul, Korea

Awards

Atelier’s Ar tisits Special Exhibition,

2012 Shor tlisted, the Open West, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, UK

Jangheung Atelier Exhibition Hall, Jangheung, Korea

2007 Selected Ar tist, Joongang Fine Ar ts Prize, Seoul Ar ts Center, Seoul, Korea

Jeong Ji-hyun & Hong Ji-yeon, Two-Ar tists Exhibition, Gallery Sun Gangnam, Seoul, Korea

Selected Ar tist by Critics, Monthly Magazine Chosun, Seoul Ar ts Center, Seoul, Korea

Ar t Dubai 2009, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE

2004 Shor tlisted, Songeun Grand Ar t Award, Seoul Ar ts Center, Seoul, Korea

SCOPE New York 2009, Lincoln Center Damrosch Park, New York, USA

2002 Shor tlisted, Na Hae-suck Woman Grand Ar t Award,

13 Young Ar tists : Above Daily Life, Rho Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2008 The Soul of Korean Contemporary Ar t, Insa Ar t Center, Seoul, Korea Sun Contemporary 0809, Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea

Kyoungki-do Culture Ar t Center, Suwon, Korea 2001 Special Prize, Misulsegue Grand Ar t Award, Seoul Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

Merry Colorful Abstraction, Gallery Ar tside, Seoul, Korea

2000 Excellent Statue, New Frontier Award, Seoul Museum of Ar t, Seoul, Korea

Jeong Ji-hyun/ Hong Ji-yeon/ Hwang Chang-ha, Three-Ar tists Exhibition,

1999 Bronze Statue, Nationwide University Ar t Festival,

Gallery Sun Gangnam, Seoul, Korea

Soseong Ar t Museum of Kyonggi University, Suwon, Korea

Ar t Fair Tokyo 2008, Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo, Japan 2007 Sun Contemporary 0708, Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea

Residencies

Pocheon Asia Biennale, Pocheon Banweol Ar t Hall, Pocheon, Korea

2011–2012 Cité Internationale des Ar ts de Paris, Paris, France

In Touch of the Present, Korean Ar tists Collaboration,

2008–2010 Gana Jangheung Atelier Residence, Jangheung, Korea

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This catalogue is published by HADA Contemporary to accompany the exhibition:

JEONG JIHYUN SOLO EXHIBITION 2012 NAKED LANDSCAPE 27 JUNE - 2 JULY 2012 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any mean, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without prior written permission from HADA Contemporary Ltd.