Peyto Gallery presents a solo exhibition “Dancing, Painting” by JUNG Kangja, a renowned Korean avant-garde artist, on view through January 11 next year.

This exhibition features works centered on the dances of the people encountered during her journeys to remote areas that are untouched by modern civilization across dozens of countries, pursuing artistic inspiration.

The human body, a vessel for delivering dynamic and primal energy, is reinterpreted by the artist through her visual language, the signature geometric semicircles, and is brought to life in a surreal composition filled with vibrant colors and rhythms.

From the dances she observed during her travels across early Africa, Central and South America, the South Pacific, and Southeast Asia to ballet, flamenco, and traditional Korean dance, she interprets the dynamic movements of diverse dances using the unique semicircles allowing a glimpse into the vitality, joys, and sorrows of life.

JUNG Kangja (1942-2017) is a pioneering and daring artist who devoted her life to exploring the themes of overcoming limits and liberation. The series of installation works presented through the “Young Artists’ Joint Exhibition” (1967), and the happenings and performances of 1968 played a leading role in the history of Korean performance art by showcasing avant-garde artistry that used the body as a medium.

After going back to Batik and painting, she expressed her inner world through symbolic depictions of female figures, natural elements, and geometric patterns until her passing in 2017, and journeyed to isolated regions across the globe to capture the landscapes and lives of the people there on canvas.

“Dancing, Painting”
2024.12.11 - 2025.01.11
Tue-Sat 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Peyto Gallery
220, Dongho-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea

Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.