Soluna Fine Art is pleased to present ‘The Paradox of Beauty’, the first solo exhibition of the contemporary Korean hyperrealist painter Jeong Myoung-Jo with the gallery. To commemorate the month of September, which signals the seasonal transition from summer to fall, Jeong’s exhibition showcases a total of 11 works from the artist’s signature oeuvre depicting the women in traditional Korean finery, the hanbok, across different seasons of life and class.
About the exhibit
There are deeper implications behind Jeong Myoung-Jo’s painting series, apart from the exterior beauty of the embellishments that the audience may be drawn to at first glance. In addition to the hidden faces of the women, the iconographic interpretations of the background, dresses, hairstyles, jewelry, and motifs give clues to the paradoxical meanings in beauty and status that span from the dawn of history to the modern age in Korea.
Although Jeong’s paintings lament the historical oppression of Korean women from various positions, they also visually re-code and empower the subjects of the portraits to reclaim themselves from the traditional gender and class stereotypes through offering fresh insights. In a way, the historical female icons are closer to modern women, who, like gisaengs, simultaneously receive formal training and education, while behaving autonomously with genuine subjectivity within the elaborate social systems. This can be further illustrated by the fact that the painted figures are Jeong’s acquaintances, dressed in hanbok, who are aware of the issues that are still prevalent in the country today.
Therefore, by deliberately choosing to hide the portraits’ faces, Jeong invites the audience to re-examine the historical female beauty from modern viewpoints. The act of analyzing the paintings is also mirrored by the subjects in the paintings, who have their backs turned as if occupied by something. Moreover, the hyperrealistic portraits represent illusions, encouraging the act of inquiry into the individual perceptions and paradoxes of beauty instead of blatantly accepting them at face value.