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13/06/24 - 05/07/24
Jam Yoo | Principal Veins
Jam Yoo: Principal Veins
13/06/24 - 05/07/24
Jam Yoo
Chilli Art Projects are excited to announce Principal Veins, the debut international solo show of New Haven based, Korean American artist Jam Yoo.~~A desire to “return”, when does it occur? When does the desire to return occur?~~I grew up between South Korea and the United States, trading years at a time. My first memories are from Baton Rouge and the oak trees outside LSU’s student housing. I remember that the massive trees never seemed to shed their leaves. At 9, I first entered South Korea unaware of what it meant to cross the Pacific. All around me, Confucian morality and Christian mythology laid bare a rigid social fabric, shaping my perception of power, salvation, and social responsibility. As I came to understand both my sexuality and the social expectations of a first-born son, my initial images of selfhood were defined by uncertainty, repression, and bad faith.~~As a child, I drew often. Initially, I copied scenes from Japanese and Korean manga. With these simple acts of visual mimicry – at once innocent and subversive – I gained the freedom to construct my own narratives and reaffirm a sense of autonomy. Image making became a tool of self-preservation, sustaining my queer sexuality and awakening in me the liberatory potential of figuration.~~~Yoo’s punchy, vibrant works acknowledge nature as a facade - undone by their own flatness, constructed in a world dominated by opacity and transparency. At once both obscuring and revealing, these works refuse to be blocked out - or equally, visible. Considering the opaque as both obstruction and the act of showing something at full capacity, the concept of bloom takes on a multifaceted meaning.~~We witness a bloom as elements are unfolded to reveal and to flash, both within image and object. Shady figures sprout from saturated planes of colour, only to be obscured by theatrical devices - curtains, rain and rails all become frames which both divide and unite interior and exterior. Branches begin to dissect curtains, slicing the boundary between inside and out as leaves enter and scatter across the surface of the image - channeling both autumnal atmosphere and euphoric, glistening stages; bloom as a form of lustre. A division and merging of inner and outer is simply representative of the flower itself. Blooming is a reconfiguration of a constant mass; a flipping of the face so the inside becomes out; a blurring of what is intimate and what is shared.~~As such, the body itself is also in bloom - the experience of flesh compromised, as layers peel back to reveal an intimacy, an unfolding of petals. The skin and body together make a whole, with holes that introduce a different reality between surface and mass. This tension between surface and mass is echoed throughout, with bodies taking on a mythological weight - as if they are carved or cast in stone - representative of the power of image. Stillness is an important component, reflective of Yoo’s interest in Japanese screens and theatre. These inert idols stand in contrast to the seasons they occupy, which act as a geological clock - a reminder of the earth’s constant rotation and orbit around the sun. At the same time, meteorology is timelessness - simply a study of the repetition of change.~~Ultimately, to bloom is to change. Yoo’s works experiment with surface, architectural ornamentation, and the prevalence of botanical motifs in the world of interior embellishments. In the threshold of interior and exterior, civilisation and nature, one might say that they try to bring nature inside - resulting in a tension between nakedness and the density of environment. Ruminations on opacity and transparency ultimately relate back to this nude - to bloom, to reveal or obstruct, for features to be inside or out.~~~Jam Yoo (b. 1993, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) lives and works in New Haven, CT. Jam Yoo’s interdisciplinary practice combines the organic with the synthetic as elements are both obscured and revealed, conceptually and physically. Inspired by the Japanese Rinpa school, he creates atmospheric landscapes where definable subjects or scenes take place in indeterminate, liminal places. Icons and symbols mesh throughout, oscillating between object and representation. His serene, symbolic works are occupied by a calming yet unsettling stillness throughout.~~~Yoo has previously exhibited with O’Flaherty’s, NY; Bibliowicz Gallery, NY & Olive Tjaden Gallery, NY. Yoo attained his BFA from Cornell University in 2017, and is currently undertaking an MFA in Painting & Printmaking at Yale University, CT.
American Sycamore. Summer. Feed Me And Give Me A Purpose
2023. ~Acrylic, coloured pencil, graphite and grommets on canvas. 149x215cm.
Summer. Trident Maple. I Am The Heat Of The Wrought Iron Railing
2022. Glitter, acrylic and oil on canvas. 206x141 cm.
Summer. Cicadas. Listen, I Don't Know What To Say, But I Can Feel It
2024. Acrylic, glitter, latex paint and coloured pencil on canvas. 142x259cm.~
Rain (Green Light)
2023. Acrylic, watercolour and gouache on wood. 35x28cm.
Bloom (Void)
2024. Acrylic, glass beads, glitter, aluminium pins and canvas on wood panel. 20x20x5cm.
TBT
2024. Acrylic on wood panel. 50x36cm.
Untitled (Maple)
2024. Coloured pencil, gouache, ink and graphite on paper. 35x28cm.
Chilli
1 Adelaide Road, Chalk Farm
London, NW3 3QE
By appointment only
info@chilliartprojects.com