Jungwon Jay Hur: A Woman from the Bird Egg
Jungwon Jay Hur’s artistic practice is an intricate exploration of both intercultural and personal narratives, weaving together a diverse range of influences that span art history, Korean and Western folk music, and 20th-century European cinema. Through the delicate interplay between autobiography and fiction in her artistic process, Jungwon skillfully reframes and reinterprets visual materials to forge a unique artistic language that emanates from a deeply personal space and speaks to the limitless realms of human imagination.
Pushing the boundaries of her multidisciplinary practice, the artist presents a captivating convergence of painting, etching, ceramics and a remarkable five-panelled folding screen inspired by a Korean Chaekgeori screen. This exquisite structure serves as a vessel for unfolding allegories, which appear printed via etching and aquatint across the Hanji paper. Much of the inspiration for these prints is drawn from Sheila Heat’s surrealist novel, ‘Pure Colour,’ where the protagonist finds an inner universe teeming with phantom voices and three animas born from different eggs: bird, fish, and bear. This evocative narrative resonated deeply with Jungwon, sparking a connection to the ancient Korean folktales that the artist grew up listening to. Upon the printed screen, painstakingly crafted through repetitive and laborious processes of combining and printing different etching plates, a cohesive narrative begins to emerge. Fragments of this enchanting world find their way into the realm of ceramics, where a single twisted braid cradles a silent cicada.
Central to Jungwon’s artistic vocabulary are her poignant depictions of female figures, both real and fictional, which serve as conduits for contemplation and self-reflection. Through her masterful painting of these subjects, often layered onto oneiric landscapes, the artist deftly constructs a persona that transports the viewer into a realm reminiscent of a lucid dream, where the borders between reality and imagination dissolve.
