Saerom Jeong
A Woman Having a Tea at Sunset
2023

About the Item

Saerom Jeong Saerom Jeong has been reinterpreting still-life and portraits with abbreviated forms and images, inspired by Impressionism, Pop Art, and Abstract Expressionism, while Ji Hee Lee paradoxically depicts surreal and dreamy images with her unique hyper-realist style. [Vanilla Sky] showcase the most recent works by the two artists together with the early days of their work. The title of the exhibition, [Vanilla Sky], is cited from the subtitle of Claude Monet's work, 'The Seine at Argenteuil-Vanilla Sky 1873', which appears as the background in the 2001 film ‘Vanilla Sky’. For Monet, this period was when he had a happy time with his wife and son, and Monet captured the beautiful surroundings of Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris, in his works during his time in Argenteuil. The vanilla-colored sky created by the clouds twinkling in the light is unrealistically beautiful, charming enough to make you forget the reality, and sweet like a dream you don't want to wake up from. However, as time passes, it quickly becomes dark, and we face the cold reality in the beauty that is only fleeting. The fact that objects cannot be seen accurately under the light predicts the advent of abstraction in art, and Monet, who tried to break with tradition by showing the difference between what is known and what is seen, inspired numerous artists as a pioneer of Avant-Garde art. Paintings by Saerom Jeong pursue essential forms, colors, and harmony among them. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) thought that when we look at an object, the first thing that catches our eye is a piece of color, and the form follows based on them and recognizes it. Saerom Jeong, who claims to have been inspired by Cézanne's still-life paintings, captures the essential structure of an object rather than its external appearance and simplifies nature, objects, and people into lines, planes, and circles. In Saerom's Jeong paintings, which evoke pop art and impressionism at the same time, the faces of the figures are simplified into shapes, and apples, flowers, and plants also have distinctive geometric features of round and curved lines. The person's face is replaced with a round ball, and the person's body is simplified with minimal shapes such as thick outlines and colored surfaces. In order to emphasize the general human shape rather than a specific person, the artist intentionally erases the details of the individual's external appearance and simplifies the face into a basic figure to create a graphically deformed figure. It is drawn as a portrait of a modern person, not a distinguishable individual or a specific person, and induces the audience to project and substitute themselves. The stems of plants appearing in the work show a supernaturally fast growing movement and look lively, reminding us of a strange sight seen in a dream even though it is a real object. The figures show clarity in the stillness, such as picking fruits, reading books, and drinking tea among the flowers and plants around them. Saerom Jeong avoids realistic depiction of objects and composes the canvas with the intention of abstract brush touches and dripping paint to express daily life in a pictorial way. Exhbition : 2023 'Vanilla Sky' at VIVIAN CHOI GALLERY Seoul

Creator:

Saerom Jeong (1986, Korean)

Creation Year:

2023

Dimensions:

Height: 31.62 in (80.3 cm)Width: 31.62 in (80.3 cm)

Medium:

Acrylic

Period:

2010-

Condition:

Gallery Location: