Jang Pa (b. 1981) focuses on otherized senses within the realm of painting from a feminist perspective, questioning the gender-biased construction of visual language. Drawing from personal experiences of the absurd and violent dichotomy between socially constructed "normality" and "abnormality," she recontextualizes these ideas through her own unique painterly language.

From her early series ‘A Secret Room of Plants’ to her most recent works, Jang Pa’s practice converges on the theme of “otherness,” exploring the mechanisms between "structural violence" and "otherized beings." ‘A Secret Room of Plants’ tells the stories of plants that have internalized violence. 

In this series, Jang Pa created a scenario set in a "red brick house" and developed multiple scenes based on it. The narrative reveals the cycles of violence within human society through the lens of plants and animals.

This work is based on Jang Pa’s personal experience of closely observing someone close to her who has been labeled as "abnormal" by society for years. She explains that through this series, she sought to metaphorically express the social suffering and structural violence they endure. 

In her paintings, the “red brick house” symbolizes a space where the structured desires of modern society operate. The “dog” embodies both animalistic instinct and violence, functioning as a being that resists the brutality of civilization. Meanwhile, the “plants,” initially untouched by such desires, are depicted as entities that “learn” violence through their interactions with animals. 

Through these metaphorical elements, Jang Pa aims to reveal the cyclical nature of violence in contemporary society, prompting reflections on the relationship between human nature, desire, and violence.

Meanwhile, the ‘The End of the World’ series reflects Jang Pa’s self-reflective perspective on the world. Her paintings depict a stark contrast between the forcefully erupting water and a seemingly empty, silent black pool. A square-shaped vanishing point, resembling a black hole, is positioned deep in the upper center of the composition. In some works, a man is shown running away, screaming, yet his voice remains unheard. 

Within these psychologically unsettling spaces, the silent cries reverberate, embodying the artist’s fear and helplessness toward a world that either turns a blind eye to violence or has internalized it to the point of unconsciousness. At the same time, these works reflect her ethical sense of guilt in the face of such realities.

In her ‘Lady-X’ series, a major body of work first introduced in 2015, Jang Pa delves into the visual representation of "women as the other" and "the feminine grotesque" through painting. This series marks her more explicit exploration of these themes, seeking to challenge and reinterpret their depiction. 

According to the artist, the series was initiated by two fundamental feminist questions: "How can a woman's autonomous sexual desire be expressed?" and "Is it possible for women to break free from the 'male gaze' that objectifies them and instead become active agents of gaze and representation?"

Starting from these critical questions, Jang Pa aimed to reconstruct the “senses of the female-other”—those excluded or concealed within male-centered perspectives and language—through a painterly vocabulary. In the process of recontextualizing “femininity”, she continuously questioned the gender-biased sensory frameworks that shape perception. 

The ‘Lady-X’ series is based on a narrative about a girl named Lady-X, who possesses a fetish known as dendrophilia—a deep affection for trees—and explores her sexual fantasies. Through Lady-X’s fantasies, Jang Pa visualized a journey of discovering female sexuality, expressed through both painting and animation. 

Lady-X’s exploration begins in a forest, where the object of love is replaced—not another person, but trees. Here, the forest serves as a space where beings rejected by the community can emerge and exist freely. Within this space, Lady-X encounters unfamiliar entities, engaging with them to enact her fantasies.

In this series, the journey of love experienced by Lady-X reveals an intimate landscape visible only to her. By doing so, the work positions the audience as either voyeuristic and greedy witnesses or as active participants in the fantasy, continuously drawing them into the scenes of the paintings. 

Jang Pa explains that, through this work, her ultimate goal is to visualize the process of transcending the fascination and anxiety tied to objects that exist solely within oneself. She seeks to depict the journey toward becoming an ethical subject—one capable of embracing the other.

The painterly sensibility of the “feminine grotesque,” first explored in the ‘Lady-X’ series, continues to manifest in Jang Pa’s later works. In her paintings, the female body is often depicted in amorphous forms—distorted, melting, or dissolving. 

Jang Pa interprets the “feminine grotesque” as an aesthetic sensation that emerges during the formation of a new female subject—one that questions and transgresses the boundaries of subjectivity. She sees aesthetic categories that deviate from the male-gaze-regulated female body as possessing the potential to disrupt and transform conventional social sensory systems. 

This sensation, which arises in the process of overcoming objectification, allows for the formation of subjectivity without rendering others as the “other”. Thus, through this aesthetic, Jang Pa has been refining a visual language that breaks away from gender-biased perspectives, ultimately envisioning a new form of female subjectivity.

Alongside this, Jang Pa has metaphorically referenced social issues such as the #MeToo movement in her paintings or has directly presented the figure of the “female monster” as a way to express her perspective on women’s issues—both explicitly and sensorially. 

For example, her ‘Brutal Skins’ series visualizes the unspeakable and unspoken experiences and sensations of women through grotesque, liquid-like textures of the female body and provocative neon colors.

The ‘Women/Figure’ series, which began in 2020, collects images of misogyny inherent in art history and cultural history, and re-arranges/repositions them. Based on materials gathered through various media since 2011, this work addresses the "world of women," which has been neglected and oppressed within the male-dominated grand narratives.

To achieve this, the artist has collected thousands of images and texts related to women, minorities, masculinity, and feminism, including classical masterpieces and images circulating on the internet. These are then classified into several keywords and explored by connecting them from the classical language of painting to images in subcultures.

In particular, the artist focused on how popular culture, developed within the internet environment, reproduces misogyny surrounding the female body. To explore this, the artist collected and re-arranged images and videos commonly found on the internet, such as GIFs, memes, and fake news, to trace the transformation of female figures.

The artist describes this work as a project aimed at showing the "strata of images" related to the female form. Starting with the ancient female statue, the "Venus of Willendorf," which symbolizes fertility, the project creates a layered composition that blends various representations of the female figure, from those of the past to those rapidly circulating and being reproduced on the internet today. Through this, the artist traces the history of female images and rewrites that history.

The ‘Women/Figure: Mama’ (2023) series, an extension of the existing ‘Women/Figure’ series, centers on the Korean female creation myth, "Mago Halmi” (an old woman named Mago), specifically the legend of "Seolmundae Halmang" from Jeju Island. In the myth, Mago Halmi is depicted alternately as a villain and as a mother with deep maternal love, passed down through oral tradition.

The artist reconstructs this figure with a grotesque body. In the artist's work, Mago Halmi appears as a body where gender is indeterminate, with internal organs, reproductive organs, and tentacle-like forms entangled within. The female body, which was traditionally viewed only as an object of gaze, now gazes back at the viewer through multiple eyes.

Additionally, images of the “Venus of Willendorf” statue are screen-printed throughout the composition, creating a visual and symbolic clash with the Mama figure as conceptualized by the artist.

In this way, Jang Pa visualizes the senses of those excluded within the sociocultural structures of "normalcy" or "male-centered" society through the language of painting, while seeking new forms of subjectivity. Her work, which reactivates the senses of those who have been obscured or minimized, invites us to discover and re-sensitize ourselves to the "other" within and around us.

“What I speak of as femininity or the feminine in my work is not simply a concept closed off to biological sex, but rather emphasizes the expansion of the boundaries of womanhood based on the multiplicity and openness of the body, a deterritorialized body.” (Jang Pa, BE(ATTITUDE) Interview)

Jang Pa graduated Seoul National University with a B.F.A in both Painting and double major in Aesthetics, M.F.A in Painting. Jang Pa has held solo exhibitons at Humor Garmgot (2023, Seoul), KICHE (2022, Seoul), alltimespace (2022, Seoul), IAP Warehouse Gallery (2020, Incheon),  DOOSAN Gallery Seoul (2018, Seoul), DOOSAN Gallery New York (2017, New  York), Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (2016, Seoul), Makeshop Art Space (2015, Pajju), Gallery Zandari (2015, Seoul), Tv12 gallery (2013, Seoul), OCI Museum of ART (2011, Seoul), Alternative Space HUT (2009, Seoul).

She has staged and participated in various group exhibitions at ARAC (2024, Bucharest, Romania), MMCA Seoul (2024, Seoul), Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2024, Seoul), SONGEUN (2023, Seoul), ARKO Art Center (2023, Seoul), DOOSAN Gallery Seoul (2023, 2015, Seoul), Incheon Art Platform (2022, Incheon), Gallery Func (2022, Shanghai), D/P (2020, Seoul), Post Territory Ujeongguk (2019, Seoul), Art Space Pool (2017, Seoul), Seoul Musem of Art (2015, Seoul), OCI Museum of ART (2015, Seoul), and more.

Her works are part of the collection at the Seoul Museum of Art, MMCA Art Bank, and Seoul National University Museum of Art. Also, her major book is “The Utterances of the Painter” (2020).

References

• 장파, Jang Pa (Artist Website)
• 인천문화통신 3.0, 장파 인터뷰, 2020.08.26 (IFACNEWS 3.0, Jang Pa Interview, 2020.08.26)
• 국립현대미술관, 접속하는 몸: 아시아 여성 미술가들 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Connecting Bodies – Asian Women Artists)
• 기체, 장파 (KICHE, Jang Pa)
• 비애티튜드, 타인의 고통에 응답하는 사람