Wed 1 Jun 2022 to Sat 9 Jul 2022
Via Ripense 6, 00153 Jamie Jiwon Park: 밥 먹었어? Have You Eaten?
Tue-Fri 12-7pm, Sat 3pm-7pm
Artist: Jamie Jiwon Park
T293 presents HAVE YOU EATEN?, the first solo exhibition by New-York based artist Jamie Jiwon Park (them/she). On display a series of large-scale mixed-media paintings.
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Jamie Jiwon Park (b. 1998, New York ) creatively honors the invisible labor of domestic spaces by contextualizing powerful caretakers in a radically imagined, tech-infused, alternate future. Raised in Los Angeles by Korean immigrants, Park’s diasporic history informs much of their work. Through imagery that blends tech iconography with Korean and western references, Park visualizes a rapidly diversifying future. Looking forward, they embrace the complexity of identity and question how cultural preservation, the blurring of gender roles, nostalgia, and technology will shape future domestic labor. Imagining strong, financially-independent caretakers supporting themselves at home, Park pulls from personal and collective minor feelings about food preparation, eating, and domestic manners to visualize convincing, alternate futures for their lineage.
As the viewer walks through Park’s exhibition, they follow the cycles of preparing, cooking, serving, and enjoying home-cooked food. The bright neon and pastel palette embellish this daily process with a synthetic edge, but the references in each piece go beyond the visual. Park incorporates traditional Korean spices, grains, and mulberry paper into their paintings, as well as US-sourced dry ingredients. Their style nods to Korean artists such as Kang Un, Kim Jong-sook and Cho Mi-young, who use non-traditional painting materials and high volume, repetitive motifs to create alternate worlds. In the final piece, PLEASE EAT SOME FRUIT, Park hand cuts and paints over 800 individual pieces of cut fruit to celebrate and provide a meal-finishing dessert for those that have sacrificed time cutting, peeling and serving fruit.
HAVE YOU EATEN? remembers the comfort of a loving caretaker, but one who checks in with themself as they would a loved one. The implicit, “How are you?” in "Have you eaten?" cradles the receiver with care. This body of work ultimately serves as an offering for Park, to honor the selfless caretakers that fed, supported and loved them.
Jamie Jiwon Park (b.1998, New York) is working to create their home in the future. Raised in Los Angeles by Korean immigrants, Park pulls from collective habits, traditions and personal memories to visualize convincing, alternate futures for their lineage. Their work reflects them questioning ties to tradition and cultural preservation where prejudice is often a byproduct. Hopeful, Park focuses on the strength of nostalgia and radical normativity — the idea that widely accepted truths can be confronted with nuance. Through imagery that blends tech iconography with Korean and western references, Park visualizes a future that continues to rapidly diversify. However, the references in their pieces go beyond the visual as Park incorporates non-traditional painting materials in their work, such as Korean spices, grains, and mulberry paper, as well as US-sourced dry ingredients.
Intrigued by the Korean-Confucian history of repetition and the dedication demanded by it, Park often uses high volume repetitive motifs in their work. For them, practicing the same stroke or cut over several weeks feels like a meditative experience, while also allowing them to manually engage with the labor that inspires them. In one of their most recent pieces, PLEASE EAT SOME FRUIT, Park hand makes over 800 individual pieces of cut fruit to celebrate and provide a meal-finishing dessert for those that have sacrificed time preparing and serving fruit. Ultimately, Park hopes to honor their diasporic lineage by reimagining and encouraging its traditions in a diversified context.