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Young Do Jeong : Bury me

July 21 – August 21, 2021 | PKM+
40, Samcheong-ro 7-gil, Jongno-gu, 03049 | T. 02 734 9467


From July 21 to August 21, PKM Gallery presents Bury me, a solo exhibition by Young Do Jeong (b. 1985), who is known for his distinctive use of bold and vivid colors and arrangements in his paintings. The exhibition unveils 25 artworks that he has persistently pondered and developed. Works on display are shaped panels, drawings, and paintings, including polyptychs that the audience can view separately or jointly.

Young Do Jeong depicts the complicated conflict between the inner mind and the external world in his paintings aesthetically based on his experience growing up in two different East and West cultures. Jeong deconstructs ambivalent feelings of personal desires, wishes for communication, understanding/ misunderstanding of people, and love and loss. Through psychoanalytic reflections, he converts them into symbols that consequently make up the metaphorical and descriptive surfaces.

Bury me (2021), the figure diving into the land expresses a self-determined action to reach a destination. It is an upside-down body, a shape simultaneously pursuing solid landing and sprouting up from the ground. The viewer can find the eyes of animals and humans throughout the surfaces of his artworks. Being sensitive and sensual, they are ‘nipple-eyes,’ reminding us of the mother's breasts that we encounter first upon birth.

Along with these eyes, representations like a rolling head and a hand gesture of welcoming appear repetitively in his oeuvre; they become noticeable, disguised, or even pulled out to be conspicuous. Like an ambiguous figures illusion, Jeong’s paintings can be differently perceived when seen up close and from a far distance, when seen as a single canvas or with other canvases, and when the focus is on the forms or their silhouette. Such characteristics convey the artist’s instinctual wishes and experiences in reality.

Jeong delved into himself during this pandemic and contemplated the ways of communication with different points of view. The audience could find the artist's intuition manifest or latent. His paintings capture the artist’s intuitive feelings but do not intend to impose a definite conclusion. The icons in his paintings could trigger the audience's imagination without limitation.

Young Do Jeong received his BFA in painting at Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, US) and an MFA in painting and drawing at Tyler School of Art at Temple University (Philadelphia, US). Jeong has held exhibitions at distinguished institutions in Korea and US and participated in numerous international art fairs including Art Basel and FIAC, constantly capturing the eyes of collectors and art-related professionals. In 2017, Jeong held a two-person show at PKM Gallery with Hernan Bas. His artworks are included in the collections of K11 Foundation (Hong Kong), Brookhaven College (Farmers Branch, US), and Art Bank of National Museum of Contemporary art, Korea (Seoul, Korea).

정영도 : Bury me 
Young Do Jeong : Bury me


July 21 – August 21, 2021 | PKM+
서울시 종로구 삼청로 7길 40 | T. 02 734 9467

PKM 갤러리는 2021년 7월 21일부터 8월 21일까지 대담한 색채와 화면 구성의 페인팅으로 주목받아 온 작가 정영도(b.1985)의 작품전 《Bury me》을 개최한다. 이번 전시에서는 단독 또는 연결되어 전시될 수 있는 다면 회화(Polyptych)를 포함한 페인팅과 드로잉, 셰이프드 패널(shaped panel) 작업 등 작가가 오랜 기간 고민하며 진전시켜 온 신작 25점이 소개된다.

정영도는 동서양 문화권 양쪽에서 성장한 경험을 바탕으로 인간의 내면과 외부 세계 간의 복잡다단한 조우를 회화 작업 속에 미학적으로 구축해 왔다. 개인의 욕망과 타인과의 소통을 향한 갈망, 이해와 오해, 사랑과 상실감 등 작가가 겪은 양가성의 감정들은 정신분석의 방법으로 해체되고 상징화 한 아이콘들로 전환되며, 은유적이면서도 서사적인 화면으로 구현된다.

이번 개인전의 타이틀인 ‘Bury me’는 전시의 중심축을 이루는 출품작의 제목이다. 다이빙하여 땅속으로 묻히는 인물 도상의 <Bury me>(2021)는 목표 지점에 도달하려는 결의에 찬 행위인 동시에 거꾸로 고꾸라진 형체이면서, 안정적으로 착지하려는 형태이고, 밑으로부터 새로 솟아나는 형상이기도 하다. 작품 도처에서 발견되는 오리, 토끼, 물고기와 같은 생명체의 눈들은 한편, 예민하고 성적이지만 인간이 출생하여 가장 먼저 맞대는 숭고한 젖가슴, 즉 니플-아이(nipple-eye)다. 데굴데굴 구르는 머리, 들어오라는 손짓 등 하나의 아이콘이 여러 작품에서 단속적으로 등장하며 도드라지거나 은닉되고, 외따로 튀어나와 설치되기도 한다. 이처럼 정영도의 그림은 한 개의 도형이면서 관점에 따라 둘 이상의 모습으로 보이는 다의도형(多義圖形)과 같이, 멀리서 또는 가까이서, 한 점 또는 여러 점을, 내부만 또는 실루엣만 주시할 때 실시간으로 다르게 감지되는데, 이는 하나로 정의되기 어려운 작가의 직감과 체험들을 반영하는 것이다.

한편 작가는 팬데믹 시기에 본 개인전을 준비하면서, 자신을 깊이 들여다보는 고립된 시간을 가지는 동시에 사람과 사람 사이의 새로운 소통 방식에 관해 고심해 보게 되었다. 이로써 전시에서는 그의 직관적인 감각들이 화면 안에 조율되어 드러나면서도 일방적인 결말을 강요하지 않는 작품들이 제시된다. 체스 게임에서 기본 역할을 가진 말들이 사용자에 따라 매번 달리 활용되듯이, 그의 화면 속 아이콘들은 작가가 말하고자 하는 바에 대한 최소한의 단서일 뿐 관람자가 얼마든지 채택하여 다른 이야기로 각색할 수 있는 무궁한 요소로서 존재하게 되는 것이다. ‘같은 것을 경험해도 다른 결론에 도달할 수 있다’는 전제 아래, 개인의 사적 내밀함이 서로의 차이를 공유하는 무대로 확장되고 있는 정영도의 작품 세계가 이번 전시를 통해 펼쳐지고 있다.

정영도는 로드아일랜드 디자인대학(Rhode Island School of Design)과 템플대학교 타일러 미술대학(Tyler School of Art, Temple University)에서 회화 전공으로 학사 및 석사 학위를 받았다. 미국과 한국의 유수 미술 공간에서 전시를 열고 아트 바젤(Art Basel), 피악(FIAC)을 포함한 다수의 주요 국제 아트페어에 출전하며, 미술 관계자와 컬렉터들에게 지속적인 이목을 끌었다. 2017년에는 PKM 갤러리에서 헤르난 바스(Hernan Bas)와 2인 전을 개최한 바 있다. 그의 작품은 홍콩의 K11 아트 파운데이션(K11 Art Foundation), 미국 달라스의 브룩헤이븐 컬리지 컬렉션(Brookhaven College Permanent Art Collection), 국립현대미술관 정부미술은행 등에 소장되어 있다.

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