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February Issue
2008
Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, Features Works by Jiha Moon
Artist Jiha Moon's expressive and seductive paintings examine the symbiotic relationships of opposites and explore the connections and conflicts between Asian and American cultures. Moon's compositions expose cultural hybridity through an eclectic repository of symbols drawn from her native Korea and Western pop culture, garnering her critical acclaim and broad popular appeal. The exhibition VantagePoint VII Jiha Moon: Turbulent Utopia marks Moon's first solo museum exhibition and will be on display at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, from Feb. 2 through July 6, 2008.
Moon utilizes the genre of landscape as a point of departure, but her paintings bear no resemblance to pastoral studies. Rather, they offer a rich melding of abstraction and representation, painting and drawing. Her colorful paintings are hallmarked by bold, lyrical brushstrokes and detailed imagery that blends disparate elements to create fantastical landscapes with a contemporary twist.
Moon utilizes improvisation and imagination as she lays down gestural marks of inks and washes, referencing both calligraphy and color field painting. She has stated, "I want to be a visual interpreter of the mixed cultural worlds of my generation." Moon's artwork reflects these mixed cultures by combining acrylic a typically "Western" medium and handmade Hanji paper from Korea. The dark hue of this paper encourages her to adopt a darker palette of violets, blue and greens. This more intense range of color is inspired, according to Moon, by Chinese landscape paintings of the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD) She embellishes the lyrical washes of color with thin brushes that add detail, transforming a brushstroke into a dragon's head or a rocky terrain.
Over 20 paintings will be included in VantagePoint VII Jiha Moon: Turbulent Utopia, including the Mint Museum of Art's recent acquisition, Jade Cycle (2007). Now residing in Atlanta, GA, Moon has previously exhibited in New York at White Columns, Asia Society and The Drawing Center. Moon's paintings are held within the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Asia Society, New York; and the Mint Museum of Art.
VantagePoint is the Mint Museum of Art's ongoing series of contemporary exhibitions emphasizing the range of exploration and new developments in recent art practice.
For further info check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the Museum at 704/337-2000 or visit (www.themintmuseums.org).
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