Installation
view of 《The
Painters’ Union Breathing in Hiding》 ©Nook
GalleryNook Gallery presents a two-person exhibition 《The Painters’ Union Breathing in Hiding》 by
Fi Jae Lee and Jungyeob Jung, through June 28.
Fi Jae Lee and Jungyeob Jung tell stories
through painting and express their emotions through their artwork. This
exhibition presents Fi Jae Lee’s new paintings and drawings, which reveal a
transposition and exchange of dimensions occurring between bodily gestures and
the act of drawing. It also features Jungyeob Jung’s new paintings, in which
she discovers traces of women’s labor in seeds—grains that are both sustenance
and vessels of life.
Installation
view of 《The
Painters’ Union Breathing in Hiding》 ©Nook
GalleryJungyeob Jung (b. 1962) observes and paints small,
often-overlooked subjects from everyday life. Her surreal compositions, created
from countless tiny beans or red beans commonly seen in domestic spaces,
possess a striking intensity. These minuscule seeds in her paintings gather in
swarms as if whispering stories to one another—stories that disperse and
reassemble, prompting new layers of imagination.
Fi Jae Lee (b. 1981)’s works in this exhibition stem from her
experiences during a recent residency program in Shanghai, China. Her endlessly
expanding world of imagination begins in drawing and flows naturally into
painting. Mysterious narratives unfold across her canvases, intimately linked
with her body. The artist captures fleeting emotions and phenomena and weaves
them into a network of connections—creating a fantastical visual tale that
traverses between reality and fiction.
Although twenty years apart in age, Fi Jae Lee and Jungyeob Jung
work tirelessly in their own visual languages to reflect the times they live
in. The worlds they draw are not detached from our own—they breathe quietly in
their own spaces while viewing the world through a female perspective.
Embracing all contradictions within themselves, they offer a poetic vision of
the world, rooted in their lived experience.
