Nocturnal
Mindy Solomon is pleased to present Nocturnal, the second solo exhibition of Jiha Moon presented in Miami. During her tenure as a represented artist of the gallery, Moon has continued to explore the ways in which she marries her South Korean identity with her current status as a resident of the United States. Bold, colorful, and tongue in cheek, Moon draws upon cultural references- both American and Asian, in order to create works that are uniquely her own story.
Straddling the line between two and three dimensional works, Moon has created new pieces that explore the intersection of both in her “Shrine” series. Moon states:
“Nocturnal presents my new bodies of work in which I explore the hybridity of ceramic objects combined with paintings. In the new “Shrine” series, I juxtapose paintings and ceramic objects together in a box setting. In the plate painting series, I play with objecthood inspired by identities of food (dumpling, banana peel, peach) and cultures in three-dimensional forms, where two-dimensional painting and drawing language coexist. I have found a rugged and rich beauty working with a darker clay body, this enables me to create starry night scenes. I draw and paint using underglaze and layer with glazes in both high and low fire for my ceramic work. Similarly, when I paint on dark brown Hanji paper, I try to contrast the darkness of the paper with electrifying yellows, bright oranges and jade greens, sothey appear as if neon lights are glowing at night. Night is the protected time when creatures can be unleashed and feel free. As an Asian American woman, I think about how my new nocturnal landscape can be a metaphor for a soulful place to dream, as well as an opportunity for the invisible to become visible.”
Moon has been a consistent voice for Asian immigration and the feeling of otherness and “invisibility” one can experience navigating unknown spaces. The mission of the gallery is to give space for diasporic perspectives and the multiplicity of her art practice enables us to reach many levels of engagement.
About Jiha Moon
Jiha Moon (b. 1973) is from DaeGu, Korea and lives and works in Atlanta, GA. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Her works have been acquired by Asia Society, New York, NY, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, Smithsonian Institute, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Greensboro, NC and The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. She has had solo exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, GA, Taubman Museum, Roanoke, VA, the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, The Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN and Rhodes College, Clough-Hanson Gallery, Memphis, TN and James Gallery of CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY. She has been included in group shows at Kemper Museum, Kansas City, MI, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA, Asia Society, New York, NY, The Drawing Center, New York, NY, White Columns, New York, NY, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, and the Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Greensboro, NC. She is recipient of Joan Mitchell foundation’s painter and sculptor’s award for 2011, MOCA GA Working Artist project fellow 2012-13, Artadia award 2016. Her mid-career survey exhibition, “Double Welcome: Most everyone’s mad here” organized by Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and Taubman Museum has toured more than 10 museum venues around the country until 2018.
Moon gestural paintings, mixed media, ceramic sculpture, and installation explore fluid identities and the global movement of people and their cultures. She says, “I am a cartographer of cultures and an icon maker in my lucid worlds.” She is taking cues from wide ranges of history of Eastern and Western art, colors and designs from popular culture, Korean temple paintings and folk art, internet emoticons and icons, fruit stickers and labels of products from all over the place. She often teases and changes these lexicons so that they are hard to identify yet stay in a familiar zone.
