Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 11, 6 - 8 pm
J I H A M O O N | A n E x a c t P l a c e
November 7 - December 19, 2009
Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 11, 6 - 8 pm
Curator's Office is pleased to present the third solo exhibition of Korean-born artist Jiha Moon. For this exhibition, the gallery will present works exploring the nature of place and its inspiration on creative output. Works include three square-format Hanji paper over canvas pieces and four horizontal works on Hanji paper. There is a special emphasis on abstraction in many of these works. As Moon is currently an artist-in-residence at The Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia, the influence of textiles is subtly apparent as several works incorporate small embroidered areas, a departure for the artist.
The works in the exhibition were created both in her Korea and Atlanta-based studios. This division in working locations provoked the artist to explore the cultural influence of a precise place in an increasingly dizzying global world. For example, in the ironically titled work, An Exact Place, Moon looked at different national flags and how these vibrantly colored but mostly abstract images try to represent a specific culture. An interchangeable quality emerges for the artist as she notes, "if you change around the positions of some colored stripes, one flag can represent different nations, for example the similarities between Italy and Mexico or France and Russia." She deconstructs the flag stripes and situates them sinuously through the work and its many focal points thereby creating an invented universality where the nexxus of culture and location allows for hybrid cultures to emerge. This visual universality includes stars, moons, suns, animals, plants and weapons -- also derived from specific flags -- but germane to us all.
Another great source of inspiration for the artist is dancheong, an ancient Korean style of decorative painting using 5 primary colors and specific elaborate patterns. Going back more than two thousand years, the murals are found mostly on the exteriors of ceremonial wooden buildings.
In the work that incorporates embroidery, such as All Around, Moon deliberately challenges herself to use exclusively abstract marks and brushstrokes to evoke a landscape. She carefully imitates some of the brushstrokes with the color and density of the threads. She says, "I mimicked one mark to make another, and then had the embroidery mimic those marks. It goes around and around to make the picture."
Another work, Stepping Out, is the artist's playful tribute to Lichtenstein's painting of the same name from 1978, in which he acknowledges his own debt to Picasso and Leger. In Moon's hands the imagery becomes multi-cultural and lushly exotic.
Jiha Moon earned her Master of Arts from the University of Iowa (2002). She has exhibited at premier New York venues including the Asia Society Museum, The Drawing Center, and White Columns, as well as in numerous other group and solo shows and art fairs across the United States, Europe, and Asia. In 2008, Moon had a solo exhibition at The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina. She has participated in residencies at Art Omi, Acadia Summer Art Program (Camp Kippy), and the Singapore Tyler Print Institute through the Asia Society, and has garnered numerous other awards. Her work is part of such prestigious public collections as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Asia Society and Museum, New York, NY; the Mint Museum; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; The UBS Collection, New York, NY; and the Neuberger Berman Art Collection, New York, NY among others. Her work has been critically reviewed by Artforum, Art in America, Art Papers, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, The New York Sun, Creative Loafing, and The Washington City Paper among others.
Jiha Moon is currently an artist resident at The Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia, PA. She is currently making a limited edition scarf for The Fabric Workshop based on the work, Botan Garden, and is in the process of completing other works with FWM.
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